Authorities in a popular Jersey Shore town are releasing body camera footage amid backlash over video that surfaced showing officers engage in a heated takedown while arresting a badgeless beach-goer earlier this week.
Carl Garguilo watched stunned on Tuesday when Belmar Police arrested 28-year-old Liam Mahoney shortly after he came out of the water. He says he saw officers tell him to put his hands behind his back, then pull him to the sand.
"People were saying leave him alone, his sister was saying he has a badge," Gargiulo said. "It was very violent and I think it's disturbing for us on the beach to see that."
Gargiulo said he's known Mahoney, who grew up in Belmar and was in town visiting family, all his life and, like many surfers, he didn't tag his beach badge to his wetsuit. Many people had badges tagged to a beach bag.
Beach-goers say patrols have been amped up aggressively the last few days, an increased presence local police attribute to a series of recent complaints of surfers illegally entering the beach across the dunes. According to the Belmar police chief, gate attendants who have asked those surfers for badges have been ignored.
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On Tuesday, the day of the Mahoney incident, the officers who encountered him were conducting one of their routine badge checks. The body cam footage shows the young man say, "I do not need one" when asked at first for his badge. He is informed of local regulations requiring him to produce one and says "no" when asked for his information so, an officer could provide a summons for the associated violation, the police bodycam shows.
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Authorities say Mahoney was not arrested for not having a beach badge. They say he was arrested because he allegedly obstructed the officer's investigation by refusing to give his information. Officers allegedly told Mahoney nine to 10 times to place his hands behind his back and he refused repeatedly, trying to walk away with his surfboard.
Attorney information for him wasn't immediately clear.
Other beach-goers say that wasn't the first such confrontation on the sand this week. Some say they saw a confrontation between a surfer and a badge checker a day earlier, on Monday, which they speculated may have fueled the enhanced scrutiny.
