Upon arriving at the parade site last night, Miss Ginger was thrilled to see the large number of Houston's finest out on the streets. If you recall, she has ranted about the lack of crowd control last year, so this year she was very glad to see mounted police and police barricades. She's used to seeing those, because they are used every weekend in her native New Orleans to keep tourists safe in the French Quarter.
As she walked the parade, she saw the mounted police, in troops of three, riding along inside the barricade line to "remind" over anxious children not to hop the barricades or leave the sidewalk. The parade moved very smoothly this year, because there were not crowds of people swarming the floats and walkers trying to collect beads and throws.
Apparently, this grown woman needed plastic trinkets so badly that she chose to step into the street to collect them. She was looking the other direction as the police approaced her with whistles and shouted commands. Clearly, she didn't realize the police were yelling at her, so the officer, as he is trained to do, inched the horse forward toward her. Some say the horse got spooked, but I doubt this is the case since those horses are highly trained to cope with crowds as their primary duty. There would be no reason for HPD to keep a horse that is easily spooked by crowds. Anyway, she lost her footing, and ended up being stepped on by the horse, which probably did spook at that point because it is trained NOT to have people underneath it!Anyway, the poor lady got pretty mangled. I feel sorry for her. I really do.
However, her husband, of course, is being an asshat. "This was unecessary", he said. (Yes, it was, douchebag. If your wife had respected the police barricade it would never have happened!)
He continues to say: "I understand the need for crowd control, but this was excessive." Well, clearly it wasn't, since your wife chose to ignore the "suggested" crowd control and required "forced" crowd control to keep her where she was supposed to be!
Again, Miss Ginger really feels sorry that the lady was hurt. And it looks like some plastic surgery will be needed to fix her face, but she is alive and recovering.
And I, for one, am glad the mounted police were there. It could have easily been a child under the wheel of a float, an ordeal I doubt anyone would survive!
