‘No respect, no control’: NJ cops blame mayhem on parents, social media, ride shares

🚨 Social media blamed for attracting large crowds to events, malls and boardwalks

🚨 Gov. Murphy is expected to sign a bill that will increase penalties

🚨 Law enforcement cites youth and parent culture

🚨 Role of ride-share companies probed

Law enforcement around New Jersey is reviewing incidents with rowdy teens to find better ways to respond.

Seaside Heights police arrested 52 adults and 21 juveniles for a total of 73 arrests during the Memorial Day weekend. The boardwalk was shut down early Monday as Brick police, the Ocean County Sheriff's Department, and the Ocean County Prosecutor's Office all assisted. Three people were stabbed but no arrests have been made in connection to that.

Another TikTok meetup brought 300 teens to the Woodbridge Center carnival on Saturday. When police tried to clear the scene, they just moved to the mall. Edison Police Chief Thomas Bryan, who dealt with a gathering the prior weekend at Menlo Park Mall, looked further into the influencer who extended the invitation.

Comparing this generation of young people to the past

Generations of teens have gone to malls. But in 2025, it's a different experience. Bryan shared TikTok video posted ahead of the Menlo Park Mall incident that invited viewers to "pull up to the mall" for "interviews, TikToks, whatever."

"When we were growing up, there wasn't the social media to have such a platform to reach out to so many people," he said, comparing to his experiences growing up. "You got together with three, four or five friends. You rode your bike to the mall, you walked around."

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Chief says youth don't respect authority, and parents don't believe cops

The chief said another difference is that kids seem to have no respect for authority and their parents don't believe their child can misbehave, no matter the evidence from body cam video.

"The kids have no respect for authority. Reviewing all the body cam footage of all the officers that were there, there's just absolutely no respect. And then when you talk to the parents, it seems like they just don't care. It's a different generation," Bryan said.

State Sen. Paul Moriarty, D-Gloucester, sponsored legislation that would have upgraded penalties for those who incite public brawls and fights in public spaces. It received a conditional veto from Gov. Phil Murphy, who was concerned about language regarding the wearing of facial masks.

"They just added a paragraph that said, if you're wearing a mask for religious reasons or protest reasons, that portion of the law wouldn't apply. So I don't think that this really changed the legislative intent at all. And I think it was minor, and we will pass this bill on Monday, and it will become law," Moriarty told New Jersey 101.5.

Responsibility for ride-share services during wild events

Moriarty said that some of the large crowds that came to the Gloucester Day carnival in 2024 were dropped off. When the crowd was dispersed, the teens had no way to leave.

"We had hundreds of kids that congregated that were either being dropped off by ride sharing companies or by parents by the car load. And then when this mayhem took place, and the police finally brought it under control, you had all these kids that didn't have cars, that were underage, didn't have driver's licenses. We're stuck with these kids now. We have nowhere to ship them. They don't have rides anywhere," Moriarty said.

The Democrat said potential legislation about the role of ride-share services in dropping off a large group of juveniles is still in the discussion stage.

"If you show up and there are four or five kids that want to crawl into the car, maybe say no. So these are things that have to be worked out, and some of them could be worked out with ride-share organizations," Moriarty said.

"But again, it comes to parental responsibility, because if 15-year-olds are calling a Lyft or an Uber and putting five, six people in that car, they're not using their credit card, are they? Because they're too young to have a credit card. They're using their parent's credit card or someone's credit card, and what are those people doing?

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