While cruising down Shoreline Highway near the Olema Campground on July 4, his day off, Lieutenant Doug Pittman was startled by a speedy grey B.M.W. loaded with rowdy teens that zoomed past, headed for the Independence Day festivities in Bolinas. He didn’t think much of it until he was hailed at the four-way stop sign in Olema by a cluster of spooked people, who told him that a volley of orange paintballs fired from the car had peppered an unsuspecting bicyclist.
Amidst conflicting accounts from the witnesses, a gruff Harley motorcyclist emerged to present Lt. Pittman with a cell phone video that captured not only the B.M.W. in flight, but also its license plate. “He had the presence of mind to whip out his smart phone and actually get on his motorcycle to follow the car,” Lt. Pittman said of the biker, whom commenters on a Facebook post of the incident called “Mr. Crush.”
Minutes after Lt. Pittman sounded the alarm, a deputy headed for patrol in Bolinas caught the vehicle and its five teenaged occupants at the intersection of Shoreline Highway and Olema-Bolinas Road. At first, all five teens—whose ages ranged from 17 to 19—denied the paintball salvo, though deputies spotted beer, whiskey, some marijuana and other drug paraphernalia in the car. But according to Lt. Pittman, once officers found orange paintballs in the car it was tough for the teens to keep clammed up.
All were cited for possession, and one 19-year-old from Novato was also cited on suspicion of battery, according to the California Highway Patrol. Uninjured, the cyclist suffered only the stains of orange paint and appeared to be the lone target of the fusillade. For Lt. Pittman, perhaps the most surprising part of the paintball mishap was the amount of attention his post on Facebook received: by Wednesday, it had accrued over 200 comments and nearly 2,000 “likes.”
“It’s viral for Marin,” Lt. Pittman said. “I’ve never had a posting that got so much attention. It’s really spawned a dialogue between a wide variety of groups.”