News

So, I was following this when it happened and had to piece extended details together from bits and pieces at the time. Unfortunately I lost my notes when I deleted reddit, but from memory (which may be inaccurate in places), a couple old reddit threads, and some news articles, here's the story:

The original video was recorded and went viral a year after the George Floyd protests, and then several other videos surfaced. It turned out he was quite the piece of shit. He literally terrorized the neighborhood where he lived for years, focusing on common targets: minorities (particularly black people), LGBTQ+, women, etc. But he seems to have a particular issue with black people. He has alcohol and I think substance abuse issues, and was a frequent subject of police calls. An incomplete list of some of his calls:

https://imgur.com/a/fjXYvgp

He yelled slurs at his neighbors in public. He'd knock on their doors and confront them. There was a black lady on the HOA board that he hated because she was (a) black, (b) a woman, (c) in a position of power over him. He slashed her tires; she called the police but they said there was no evidence. She put in a security camera and caught him slashing her tires again; the cops said the video wasn't clear enough. He broke down a lady's front door and threatened her in front of her children; the cops said there wasn't enough evidence. Racist slurs were spray-painted on the fence of a neighbor he was having an ongoing dispute with; not enough evidence.

He got in his car and deliberately drove his car out of his way to run over a neighbor's dog; not enough evidence. He repeatedly used a slingshot to blow out a neighbor's car windows and, on at least one occasion, someone's living room windows; not enough evidence. He left threatening notes on people's cars and houses, smeared feces on their cars, spat at them, spray painted and keyed their cars, etc. He drove people off the HOA board, and drove other people out of the neighborhood because they were tired of him, and tired of the local cops not doing anything about him.

Like I said, the video went viral the summer after the George Floyd protests. Originally the cops said what he did wasn't more than a misdemeanor and didn't arrest him. The video went viral, he got arrested and almost immediately released on bail. More stories and videos started to appear online. When crowds gathered to protest the original video and his release from jail, the cops actually ended up in front of his house to protect him - how would you feel if you'd been constantly terrorized for years by this guy and the cops refused to arrest him and then when there was finally movement they started protecting him instead?

International attention and growing crowds finally forced his second arrest - but if I remember rightly, he wasn't actually arrested the second time until police had been protecting him at his apartment all day. But the crowds weren't going away, had already thrown a couple bottles through his windows, and it was getting toward night, so the cops likely thought they had to do something to de-escalate or it would just get worse. He stayed in the jail for like a week or so, and he moved out of the neighborhood shortly afterward.

The county prosecutor's office investigated and said the cops didn't do anything wrong in each incident, but failed to treat the pattern of his behavior as an issue and intervene appropriately. They also arrested and charged at least four people who were at the protest at his house when the cops finally arrested him, because fuck extremely frustrated people demanding justice after years of inaction.

Here are a couple local articles from the time:

https://archive.is/eg4DE
https://archive.is/crOg4
https://archive.is/0slvM

And, sorry for these links, but these reddit threads have several other links:

https://old.reddit.com/r/newjersey/comments/oe6jqe/mt_laurel_finest/

https://old.reddit.com/r/PublicFreakout/comments/oe33fk/racist_confronts_man_at_his_home_and_screams/

And this guy put together a bunch of the videos he managed to find into like a 15-minute video, but really you only need to watch like the first five seconds:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=uiZEtk89PHE

Edit: lmao, just remembered: when the protestors were outside his house, before he got arrested the second time, he tried to get pizza delivered but the protestors confronted the delivery guy who, when he realized who he was delivering to, just peaced-out of the whole thing. Same thing happened to the second pizza delivery guy. And the protestors successfully got pizza delivered to them, so they got to eat delicious pizza in the parking lot during the protest, while he was stuck hungry in his apartment, surrounded by hostiles. They did have chants and stuff in the parking lot, but they were also playing hip-hop at times, which I'm sure drove him absolutely bonkers.