Man gets three months for armed snow rage

Eddie Simmons Jr. had gotten home late. Parking spots at the ARK Apartments in Bensalem were gone. Six inches of snow had begun to fall.

So Simmons, 26, left his 2004 Mazda in a tow zone, his lawyer said.

When Simmons awakened on the snowy morning of Jan. 12, it was to the sound of a snowblower outside - and the sight of his car disappearing beneath its produce.

"He woke up to where his car should have been and saw a giant pile of snow," defense attorney Craig Penglase said. "And he snapped."

Simmons, a recent transplant from North Carolina, pleaded guilty Tuesday in Bucks County Court to the area's most over-the-top act of snow rage in the brutal winter gone by. He admitted grabbing a gun, heading outside, and pointing it at snowblower operator Peter Morsa.

"Somebody had better move this snow or somebody's going to get shot," he told Morsa.

Morsa said he'd call his boss, defusing the standoff. Instead, he called police.

Judge John J. Rufe sentenced Simmons to serve three months in prison, followed by two years of probation and a mental-health evaluation. He is also banned from owning a firearm again.

Simmons pleaded guilty to a string of misdemeanors, including simple assault, terroristic threats, and possession of a firearm without a permit.

"I am very embarrassed and ashamed," he told Rufe. "This act was completely out of character for me. There is no justification for it."

The judge agreed.

"It is sad that when weather forces us into situations where we should be helping one another . . . for you to have sought priority is wrong," Rufe told him.

Morsa did not attend the hearing, but the assistant district attorney called the incident "a scary situation for everybody."

While Simmons might have come off as a violent hothead, his past suggests otherwise.

He has no criminal record, graduated from college with a 3.5 grade-point average, and has a sister-in-law who is a prosecutor near Simmons' former home on the Outer Banks.

"When the family heard about this, we were shocked," Dare County Assistant District Attorney Christen Simmons told Rufe, calling Eddie Simmons a quiet, placid type.

Defense attorney Penglase suggested that Simmons' illegal parking had hindered the maintenance crew at his apartment complex.

"And their retribution was to plow him in with their plows and blow him in with their snowblowers," he said. "He acted rashly in a moment of anger. I can't condone it, but I certainly understand it."

Because he has been in prison since his arrest, Simmons will be eligible for parole in two weeks.

After that, Penglase said, Simmons plans to move back south to the Outer Banks.

Which solves one problem.

"This was a particularly bad snow year," Penglase said. "I'm not sure he was accustomed to the way we handle it up here."