BREAKING: Your Face, if You Taunt This British Runner

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Readers, it is never funny when someone gets hurt. We sincerely believe this, so please bear it in mind as we bring you this breaking news from the U.K.:

An off-duty police officer has been convicted of attacking a drinker because he shouted 'Run Forrest Run!' at him when he jogged past. 

Paul Blundell, 37, assaulted Chris Wakely after he hollered the iconic movie line while walking towards Victoria Station in London, with his friend Matthew Gregson.

We can see you're already smiling. Stop it.

(And yes, we can see you. Deal with it. We live in a post-9/11 world.)

Now that you're settled down, you can head over to DailyMail.co.uk to read the full story—the context, details of the altercation, what's next for Mr. Blundell and his career, a photo of Mr. Blundell looking smart in a pale-blue V-neck sweater worn under a suit jacket but over a shirt and tie, which is a look we aren't confident that we ourselves could pull off.

If you don't have time for that, here are the pertinent details:

  • Mr. Blundell apparently has "Scotland Yard bosses," which we find delightful. We keep forgetting that Scotland Yard actually exists. It's one of those things that just seems fictional. 

  • Mr. Wakely and Mr. Gregson freely admit that they'd been drinking before the incident. "I had about four drinks of Guinness and a gin and tonic," Mr. Gregson said. "Less than Chris."

  • At some point in the altercation, Mr. Blundell was pushed into a "phone box," where he "dialed 999."

  • Mr. Wakely said he has little memory of the incident because at the time he was on "one of the two days" of a 5:2 diet, i.e., a diet on which one eats indiscriminately for five days and then sparingly for two. "So," he told the court, "anything after six Peronis is a blur."

  • At some point in the Daily Mail article, they use the C-word!

  • It surprises me how casually Brits use that word.

We will bring you more on this story as it develops. Particularly regarding the V-neck sweater. It would be premature for us to say so definitively, but we think it's Merino wool.