This article originally appeared on VICE Canada.
Police have charged a 19-year-old Toronto woman after video of her throwing a chair off a balcony went viral earlier in the week.
The video, which was posted on Instagram with the caption “good morning,” showed a blonde woman looking into the camera, smiling, and straight up chucking a deck chair off of a balcony. The camera follows the chair careening through the air and while we don’t see it land, the chair plunges very close to the Gardiner Expressway—a multi-lane highway that runs through downtown Toronto.
Police have charged Marcella Zoia, of Toronto, with one count of mischief that endangers life, mischief relating to the damaged property, and common nuisance. She turned herself in early Wednesday.
Toronto Police Constable David Hopkinson told VICE that Zoia tossed more than just the chair and it’s lucky no one was hurt.
"We now know that these two chairs, and some other objects, were tossed from approximately 45 floors above the ground,” said Hopkinson. “With the high winds that we've experienced and where this is, in the middle of a fairly busy tourist spot in Toronto, this could have landed a fair distance from where it was thrown and jeopardized anyone walking underneath.
"This is a very, very dangerous thing."
Hopkinson told VICE that the video was likely taken early on Saturday morning. It was posted on Reddit on Sunday night and quickly blew up as many, understandably, expressed their disgust. The video made it to John Tory, the mayor of Toronto, who told the Toronto Star he thought the act was “reckless” and wanted her punished. With the woman’s face so visible, many assumed on Monday it was only a matter of time before we learned her identity and she was charged.
Well, those predictions would turn out to be correct. Hopkinson told VICE that the Toronto Police learned Zoia’s identity on Tuesday and, without identifying her, publicly asked for Zoia to turn herself in. Hopkinson wouldn’t go into the methods used to identify the young woman but said "some very good police work and some tips from the public” helped.
This situation, paired with another video of a young man throwing a chair off a Toronto high rise near the Gardiner, had some wondering if this was some sort of dangerous trend. However, Hopkinson said he's not aware of any other copycat incidents, adding this is nothing new.
"I'm positive that we've had incidents of people throwing things off balconies in the past, I've investigated them myself throughout the city," he said. "Anything recently I'm not sure, I've heard of the rumors of that but I have not seen them myself."
While it may be nothing new, we here at VICE would like to remind our readers to not do this dumb-as-all-hell shit—even if it’s for the ‘gram.
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