Here's another one to file under "HOW DARE YOU HAVE ANY FUN DURING A SNOW STORM, THIS IS WAR TIME." A Staten Island man had the audacity, the gall, to do doughnuts in a hardware store parking lot with his Jeep despite a very clear edict from Mayor De Blasio that the city was under a travel ban.
Michael Berkman, 32, was quite possibly just another normal, law-abiding, God-fearing Staten Islander prior to Tuesday evening, when Cuomo announced that no non-emergency vehicles could travel upon the city's streets past 11 p.m.
Did Berkman simply miss the memo? Or did something in the governor's voice set him off, triggering an urge deep and primal and ineffable, spurring him to tear the sleeves from his Nautica fleece and, ignoring his wife's whimpered pleas to stop, think about what you're doing, think about the kids, head for his 1990 Jeep Cherokee, turn the keys in the ignition and let the motor hum to life before plunging, with the steely, unflinching focus of the criminally insane, into the swirling white abyss.
Authorities found Berkman in the parking lot of a Lowe's hardware store—nearly 12-miles drive from his house. It was 2:45 a.m. It's unclear whether he acted alone.
Despite this vivid display of psychosis, police did not arrest Berkman, nor did they bind him in a straight jacket or euthanize him in order that scientists may study his brain.
He was, however, issued a desk appearance ticket for aggravated unlicensed operation, and his driver's license had been suspended.
The story was broken by the Staten Island Advance, whose lede was: "He picked the wrong time to make the doughnuts."
