Jersey Shore Police Cracking Down on Boardwalk Violence

From app.com, August 16, 2011

The bells and lights of the arcades, games of chance and amusement rides ring and flash in stark contrast to a silent beach and the blackness of the ocean on a moonless night.

It is a surreal effect on the Seaside Heights boardwalk as the witching hour arrives and passes.

The families have gone home. The dancers, drinkers and rock music fans are inside the bars.

The boards are surrendered to uber-casual — sometimes scantily clad — men and women in their 20s, posturing for attention. On a quiet night, even the officers on boardwalk duty appear relaxed.

But a scene like this has been shattered too many times.

It started as a summer of trouble for police in the Shore’s boardwalk towns, with fights, a stabbing and a homicide taking place during the big holiday weekends. There also have been incidents affecting quality of life that are not as high-profile, from drunken and disorderly behavior to disrobing and even defecating in public.

In response, the police presence has been increased on the boardwalk in Seaside Heights and Seaside Park, with a “tremendous” boost planned for Labor Day weekend, according to Seaside Heights Police Chief Thomas J. Boyd.

Point Pleasant Beach police are cracking down on disorderly conduct by using more visible foot patrols on weekends and on random nights during the week.

The populations in both communities soar each summer. Seaside Heights has about 3,000 full-time residents, but that number jumps to between 50,000 and 100,000 during the warm weather. Point Pleasant Beach has about 5,000 year-round residents, but that number increases to 50,000 or more in the summer.

As the summer populations have swelled this year, violence and other disturbances seemed to have escalated.

During the Memorial Day weekend, according to authorities, a Mercer County man was stabbed during a melee at Sheridan Avenue and the boardwalk in Seaside Heights. He survived the injuries. In an unrelated incident that same weekend, another Mercer County man was beaten to death in a Seaside Park parking lot.

Police in both municipalities had to break up large fights during the Fourth of July weekend.

Larry Madaras and Maggie Cullen have owned a summer home in Seaside Park for 16 years.

“I like living in Seaside Park,” said Madaras, 73. “I’m upset with what happened at the boardwalk, because it gives (the borough) a bad reputation, which I don’t think it really deserves.”

Madaras added that the stabbing on Memorial Day weekend was “pretty unusual.”

“Usually, Memorial Day, they’re arresting high school students for underage drinking,” he said. “I think gangs are starting to come down here a little bit. Before, they were always arresting people for drunken disorder, and that hasn’t changed. Stabbings, that’s a whole different ball game.”

The problem, according to Chief Boyd of Seaside Heights, is that because of budget cutbacks this year there were about 20 fewer officers from outside agencies providing backup during the Memorial Day and Fourth of July weekends, compared with previous years. There also were no K9 units, he said.

He added that since police presence on the boardwalk was increased by about 10 officers and two K9 units each weekend, following the July Fourth weekend fights, there have been fewer incidents — and visitors can expect to see many officers on the boardwalk during Labor Day weekend.

“We’ve been really good” in recent weeks, Boyd said. “When people see a lot of police presence, they tend not to drink as much.”

In Point Pleasant Beach, roughly 10 miles away, the Borough Council approved an emergency expenditure of $95,000 for police overtime through Labor Day weekend. Police have reported a higher-than-usual number of complaints about quality-of-life issues this summer, including public defecation and disrobing.

“It is putting a strain on the ability to provide the clean, safe environment that allowed the (tourism) industry to thrive in Point Pleasant Beach,’’ said the mayor of that town, Vince R. Barrella.

Ocean County Prosecutor Marlene Lynch Ford noted that many visitors to Seaside Heights on the July Fourth weekend did not, as has been customary, make the trip home the evening of July 4, a Monday, to be ready for work the next day. Thus, there were a considerable number of people on the boardwalk Monday night into the early morning hours of Tuesday, July 5.

That set the scene for fights that broke out of the July Fourth fireworks show resulting in 62 people being charged with disorderly conduct, normally heard in municipal court .

“It’s safe to say they were intent on just causing a disturbance,” Ford said of those arrested that weekend.

Strategy session

Ford said representatives of her office and other area police departments and agencies met, and that she was satisfied that authorities have a plan to respond to future disturbances.

Since the Fourth of July weekend, Boyd said, Seaside Heights police have beefed up patrols and the Ocean County Sheriff’s Department has been providing two patrol and drug-sniffing K9 units every Friday and Saturday night.

“Dogs are phenomenal crowd control,” he added, noting that one dog can be effective in policing a crowd of 50 to 60 people.

Ford said that county investigators will help local police patrol, and that numerous undercover officers will also be working.

During Labor Day weekend, the patrols will continue after midnight Monday.

That weekend, Boyd is expecting help from State Police bicycle patrols and K9 units, surrounding communities, the Prosecutor’s Office and the Sheriff’s Department.

Ford said members of the Ocean County Tactical Strike Force — the county’s SWAT team — will also be present, though not necessarily wearing full gear.

Rick Chiarello, 52, owner of a home in Seaside Park where he resides from April through October, said that violence in the area has been an issue.

“People come down here for the daytime and they don’t really care about this community,” Chiarello said. “The police departments, as in all municipalities, have been cut back drastically by the governor and the people in Trenton.”

The reductions have left the area’s police overwhelmed, Chiarello contended.

“Not true in our case at all,” said John A. Camera, the Seaside Heights borough administrator. “There has not been any cut to the funding of our Police Department or manpower due to the new laws passed.”

Chiarello said, “This violence that has erupted in Seaside Heights has gotten out of control. I think it’s the inner city gang mentality, the alcohol, the drugs, and it has poured into Seaside Park.”

Camera said he has not noticed an increase in gang presence. Rather, he said, the fights stem more from the anonymity a large crowd offers to those determined to cause trouble.

Despite the altercations, Camera said, attendance in Seaside Heights after the Fourth of July weekend has increased from last year, putting this summer on pace to be the borough’s best in 10 years.

Marilou Halvorsen, a spokeswoman for the Storino family that operates Casino Pier and Breakwater Beach water park in Seaside Heights, said they have not seen any problems on the property they operate.

Most of the problems on the boardwalk and surrounding area this year have occurred after their properties have closed for the night, she said.

Lewd behavior

Police in Point Pleasant Beach say that as the number of visitors at their beaches and boardwalks has increased in recent years. so has the number of complaints from residents.

Earlier this summer, officials had to add defecating in public to the list of prohibited offenses, so police could issue tickets to visitors who have been soiling residents’ lawns and landscaping, according to Police Chief Kevin R. O’Hara.

More people may be taking day trips to the Shore, the chief said, because they cannot afford airfare or hotel costs for more elaborate vacations. But in the process, he said, common courtesy is breaking down.

He said more visitors are parking in residential neighborhoods, even west of the railroad tracks. Some come to the beach early in the day, and then — either while sitting in their cars or standing outside them — get changed from their bathing suits and into shorts and shirts to visit the boardwalk and bars for the evening.

“It’s a total lack of respect for common decency and respecting where our residents live,” O’Hara said.

Police said there have been instances in which visitors were walking down the street, smoking marijuana.

A conservative estimate shows ordinance violations and criminal arrests are up by about 40 percent overall this summer, according to O’Hara.

Local police have come up with an action plan, dubbed “Operation Rice Krispies.” Under it, police use high-impact and visible foot patrols on targeted evenings.

Dave Cavagnaro, 63, who lives on Parkway in the borough, said he has seen people urinating and disrobing in public. Last year, he found a young man asleep in his backyard.

He said a local bar recently stopped hosting a Monday night event in which patrons were invited to dance on a stripper pole — an invitation that apparently led to a number of fights.

That event has been canceled, but “why did it ever start, in a family town and family boardwalk?” he asked.

Barrella, the Point Pleasant Beach mayor, said his homeowners are paying for the services used by tourists, adding that other communities are allowed to impose special taxes.

But Barrella said his community does not have that ability, and it does not receive nearly as much revenue as other Shore towns, because almost all of the beaches in the borough are privately owned.

“We’re 5,000 people supporting a $2 million tourism industry,” said Barrella, a lawyer who teaches taxation at Pace University in New York. “What I’m looking for is the people who burden the services to pick up their fair share — and to do that, I need Trenton’s permission.”

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