Civil liberties advocates say New Jersey ‘anti-brawl’ bill could criminalize protest and dissent

Civil liberties groups and other government watchdogs in New Jersey are raising alarms about legislation that would expand police powers to break up unruly public gatherings and surveil certain individuals planning to attend rallies or open assemblies.

The measure, which was approved by the New Jersey Legislature last month and is under consideration by Gov. Phil Murphy, Bill A4652, would create the crime of “inciting a public brawl” and ratchet up penalties for people convicted of disorderly conduct. Under the proposal, it would also be a crime to plan or organize attendance at a public event with the intent to disrupt it.

“On the face of it, this is a direct challenge to First Amendment rights,” said Jim Sullivan, the policy director at the American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey. “This is not a time when New Jersey should be undermining people’s civil liberties. This bill is vaguely worded and would give police the discretion to break up peaceful protests under the suspicion they might turn violent.”

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Bruce Afran, a Princeton attorney and civil rights advocate, said the measure could lead to the criminalization of legitimate public gatherings and grant police wide latitude to pass judgment on acts of protest.

“If four people wear a MAGA hat to a public meeting, they could be accused of creating a disturbance or disruption by the controversial nature of their headgear,” Afran said in an interview last week. “The same reasoning could apply to a group wearing a Black Lives Matter hat, the Palestinian Authority flag or the Israeli flag.”

Supporters of the measure, the first of three companion bills under consideration, say concerns about civil liberties are overblown. Police, they point out, need new tools to combat the rapid rise of “flash mobs” and “pop-up” youth parties that disrupted peaceful community gatherings last year in South Jersey and at the Shore.

The annual Gloucester Township Day, a popular family event in the Camden County community for the past 40 years, ended in a near-riot last June when hundreds of masked youths from out of town showed up en masse and started fights and attacked police officers.

The melee disrupted an evening drone show and ended in the arrest of 11 people for various disorderly persons offenses. Several law enforcement officers sustained minor injuries, including one officer who was rammed in the back by a masked bicyclist. Township police were forced to call for mutual aid. Eventually, nearly 100 officers from Camden and Gloucester counties were needed to end the melee.

“The lawlessness I saw that night surpassed anything I have seen in 30 years as a law enforcement officer,” said Township Police Chief David Harkins, testifying before the Senate Law and Public Safety Committee in Trenton earlier this year. “We were overwhelmed very quickly.”

Harkins said the brawl appeared to be well organized: At around 8:30 that evening, young men in masks and hoodies began to emerge from side streets near Veterans Park, where the picnic was taking place. Some arrived in rideshare cars with out-of-state plates, while others appeared to be dropped off by parents, he said.

Gloucester Township officials, fearful of another brawl, are expected to cancel this year’s summer picnic, which raises scholarship money for local students. Several other New Jersey towns have either canceled summer picnic plans or are ending them earlier in the day so crowds can disperse before nightfall.

State Sen. Paul D. Moriarty, a South Jersey Democrat who is a main sponsor of the anti-brawl legislation, said further measures he expects to pass this year would allow New Jersey State Police to monitor social media of individuals who may be organizing a similar disruption. Local police, he said, would work with their state counterparts and be trained on how to use social media information to intercept an organized gang brawl.

Other proposals under consideration, he said, would allow law enforcement to charge parents who drive their children to public events where trouble appears imminent.

“I think it’s important that people have the right to protest. It’s what America was founded on, and I take that right very seriously, especially at the current time under the Trump administration,” Moriarty said in an interview. “But this legislation does absolutely nothing to infringe on the right of people to assemble and protest.”

Moriarty said that, until recent weeks, neither the ACLU nor any other group came out in opposition to the bill, which was introduced in June 2024. Records of the recent Senate committee hearing also show no one showed up to oppose the bill.

Sullivan, however, said he approached the committee before the hearing and asked it to consider amendments that were rejected. He said he is now working with Murphy’s office on a possible amendment that would clarify the role of police and remove vague language while specifically guaranteeing the proposed law would not harm the right of peaceful assembly.

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“I’m hoping the governor does the right thing and rethinks this legislation,” Sullivan said. “At this time especially, we can’t make it harder for citizens to exercise their rights.”

Mahen Gunaratna, a spokesman for the governor, said no final decision has been made on the bill. “We are still evaluating all the bills on our desk, including this legislation, and will decline comment at the moment,” he said.

The Office of Legislative Services, which evaluates the impact of proposed legislation, said it would increase the caseload of local police, prosecutors and probation officials while creating more fodder for the courts.

Generally, the office reported, disorderly persons offenses are handled as minor matters in municipal court and offenders are rarely, if ever, incarcerated. The new bill, however, would treat offenders more severely, with some being sentenced to terms in county jail.

If the bill is signed into law, a person would be guilty of inciting a public brawl if the person acts with purpose to organize or promote a group of four or more other persons to engage in a course of disorderly conduct. Inciting a public brawl would be a crime of the fourth degree if the person acts with purpose to disrupt or cause a disturbance at a public gathering or event or knowing that a disruption or disturbance is likely to occur; otherwise, it is a disorderly persons offense.

A fourth-degree crime is punishable by up to 18 months imprisonment, a fine of up to $10,000, or both. A disorderly persons offense is punishable by a term of imprisonment of up to six months, a fine of up to $1,000 or both. A petty disorderly persons offense is punishable by imprisonment of up to 30 days, a fine of up to $500, or both

Former New Jersey Sierra Club President Jeff Tittel, who was known for organizing novel protests to disrupt official proceedings on controversial environmental issues, said the bill would allow officials to treat acts of civil disobedience as a crime, from lunch counter protests and marches to civil rights sit-ins.

“Any kind of civil disobedience could be criminalized. If something happens at a march, you could be arrested. Under this bill,  when John Lewis was beaten up on Bloody Sunday, he could have gotten attested,” Tittel said in an interview last week.

“It’s scary because the bill is so broad and open to interpretation,” Tittel said. ” The bill is sort of like Trump’s tariffs. Instead of a scalpel, it’s a bulldozer. It is weaponizing the law to stop dissent.”

Reporter Krystal Knapp contributed to this story.