The Brick Township school district is cooperating with the Rutgers University Police Department in an investigation to determine whether criminal charges are necessary in the wake of a brawl in the stands at a championship football game between Brick Memorial High School and Jackson Memorial High School last weekend.
An investigation was launched after video began circulating online Sunday showing adults fighting with high school students and taunting them at the game, which the Mustangs lost 42-14. The game was held at High Point Solutions Stadium at Rutgers University.
No criminal complaints have been filed in the case, a spokesman for the Rutgers police department said late Monday. The matter is “under review,” according to the spokesman.
Interim Brick schools superintendent Richard Caldes said Monday night that the district has been cooperating with the Rutgers department and turning over information relevant to the case. The district will determine its own course of action after the police investigation has been completed.
“We’ll wait to see how it pans out with Rutgers,” said Caldes. “Obviously, this will not be tolerated.”
Caldes said it now appears more than one student was assaulted during the incident.
There are fluctuating accounts of what transpired before and after the recorded portion of the scuffle, which occurred with about five minutes left on the clock of the team’s final game of the season, said Caldes. Effectively, all witnesses have placed blame on unruly adults in the stands – including an unidentified woman who was said to have been acting belligerently toward a group of students and used an object, potentially a megaphone, to hit a student. Likewise, there are conflicting accounts as to whether alcohol played a part in the incident, though witnesses who have spoken with Shorebeat on the condition of anonymity have said some adults were drinking beer while tailgating in the stadium parking lot before the game began.
Caldes said when all of the facts become known, the district’s athletic directors will meet to help formulate a response.
