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Governor signs Hutchison bill aimed at deterring public brawls
- jsaban8
- Jun 3
- 2 min read
By Nikita Biryukov, NJ Monitor
The Senate on Monday joined the Assembly in concurring with Gov. Phil Murphy’s conditional veto of a bill that would create new criminal charges to deter disruptive pop-up parties that have harried some New Jersey towns in recent years, and the bill became law after Murphy signed it Monday afternoon.
The new law will allow authorities to charge those who provoke or attempt to provoke at least four others into disorderly conduct with inciting a public brawl or who conceal their identities to instill fear or frustrate authorities’ attempts to apprehend or prosecute them.
“This law makes it clear that if you incite a public brawl, you will be held accountable. We need to give law enforcement the tools to stop this kind of chaos before someone gets seriously hurt, or worse,” said bill sponsor Assemblyman Dan Hutchison (D-Gloucester).
Those who wear masks or disguises for medical, demonstrative, or religious reasons will not be subject to prosecution for concealing their identities.
The new law is a legislative response to pop-up parties and other large, unruly gatherings of young people that have spurred violence and chaos in some New Jersey communities in recent years. A push in favor of the law rose after Memorial Day weekend, when authorities in Seaside Heights said gangs of young people created havoc on the boardwalk.
In May, a brawl at the Menlo Park Mall broke out among 300 young people, forcing seven arrests and leaving one officer injured as locals called police from neighboring towns to bring the fracas under control, authorities said.
Later last month, officials were forced to shutter a carnival outside the Woodbridge Center after hundreds of teens responded to a social media post about the event. Authorities said they made no arrests at the scene to avoid an escalation.
“This bill is meant to make such incidents less frequent and to give our public safety officers more training and resources to help bring these situations under control,” said bill sponsor Sen. Paul Moriarty (D-Gloucester).
Murphy conditionally vetoed the bipartisan bill in early May over First Amendment concerns. The earlier version would have criminalized engaging or promoting others to engage in disorderly conduct and lacked exemptions for medical and other mask-wearing.
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