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New
law upgrades `sports rage' penalty
Tuesday,
August 06, 2002
TRENTON
- Gov. James E. McGreevey has signed Legislation intended to help reduce
“sports rage” at youth sporting events into law.
The
new law increases penalties for parents and coaches found guilty of
committing assaults at games while children are present.
Penalties
will be changed from a simple assault to an aggravated assault
punishable by up to 18 months in prison and $10,000 in fines.
"Outbreaks
at youth sporting events have become widespread and seem to happen
without provocation," said Assemblyman Gary Guear Sr., D-Hamilton,
a key sponsor of the bill along with Assemblyman Robert Smith,
D-Turnersville.
"Parents
need to use more restraint in front of their children and understand the
seriousness of their violent and inappropriate behavior around
youths," he said.
In
a statement announcing the new penalties, the lawmakers cited a number
of incidents in recent years in New Jersey and elsewhere of adults
losing control of their tempers at youth events.
They
noted that the July 2000 beating death of a hockey dad at the hands of
another father during their sons' practice at a Boston-area rink was a
shocking tragedy that raised public awareness.
In
New Jersey, they recounted an hour-long brawl during a 1999 football
game in Stratford.
In
Piscataway, a mother recently was accused of simple assault by an umpire
who alleged that she threw a partially full water bottle at him after
her son's team lost a tournament game, the lawmakers said.
In
New Brunswick, baseball fields at one complex have been designed to
lessen the chance that fired-up spectators will interfere with the
players, coaches and referees. Two of three fields are raised so that
spectators standing behind the backstop cannot see the action on the
field and bleachers are located in the outfield, away from the player
dugouts.
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