Which is worse: Having someone hit you in the nose with a beer can, or having someone spit on your head?

Admittedly, neither option is appealing. But wouldn't you think the can in the nose would have the potential to do more damage -- and thus should be considered the more serious crime?

All things being equal, that would probably be the case.

But in this instance, all things weren't equal.

The guy who got his nose hit was an average citizen.

The guy whose head was spit upon was a police officer.

And so Anthony Bryan Weitherow of Pylesville, Md., is going to jail for 11/2 to 3 years for spitting on a state trooper dispatched to deal with his assault on a man in Delta with a beer can.

His punishment for hitting the guy in the face with the can?

Two years of probation.

That, it seems, is because spitting on a cop is considered aggravated assault while hitting a citizen with a beer can is simple assault.

Something about that just doesn't seem right.

Granted, everything Mr. Weitherow did on Dec. 29, 2007, was wrong.

He got drunk, stole a U.S. flag from a front yard in Delta, draped it around his shoulders and went into a pizza shop. There, a man told him to go home and pulled the flag off his shoulders.

"I had a beer can in my pocket, and I hit him in the nose with it," he told Judge Michael J. Brillhart.

State police were called, and troopers found the flag in the middle of Main Street and Mr. Weitherow sitting on a nearby

porch. They wrestled him to the ground and, after a struggle, handcuffed him. He threatened the troopers. And inside the patrol car, he spit on the back of a trooper's head.

Disgusting, yes, and disrespectful of a police officer who routinely puts his life on the line. Certainly worthy of criminal charges.

But why should those charges be so much more weighty than the charges for assaulting the citizens whom police officers are sworn to protect?

Perhaps the idea is to deter such behavior by increasing the penalties for assaults on police officers. But drunken idiots aren't deterred by such distinctions because they're, well, drunken idiots.

In the end, it just seems unjust that Mr. Weitherow will do up to three years for assaulting an officer but no jail time for assaulting a citizen who tried to protect the flag from such disrespectful treatment.

Oh well, at least he'll be in jail where he belongs -- and where he can't drink.

CHARGES AND SENTENCES

Spitting on the trooper who was dispatched to investigate the simple assault netted Anthony Bryan Weitherow of Pylesville, Md., 11/2 to three years in state prison. He received a concurrent one to two years for resisting arrest and no further penalty for public drunkenness, harassment and disorderly conduct.

Judge Brillhart also gave Weitherow concurrent sentences of 24 months of supervised probation for the beer can assault, 12 months of probation for flag desecration, 24 months of probation for insult to a U.S. flag and 12 months of probation plus restitution for stealing the flag from a Delta front yard. The probation is to run consecutive to Weitherow's prison sentence.