NAACP Threatens Appeal, Lawsuit
Source: Published in the Ocean County Observer 3/6/01
NAACP Threatens Appeal, Lawsuit
By LOIS A. KAPLAN, Staff Writer
LAKEWOOD — James M. Waters, president of the Lakewood branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, discussed plans to appeal a recent court decision and to file a suit for violation of civil rights.
The decision, issued Feb. 9 by Superior Court Judge Peter J. Giovine, was to allow Brian M. Haikins, 32, of 13th Street to enter the county’s pre-trial intervention program. Giovine’s verdict was arrived at over the objections of program Director Delores Frey, who argued that Haikins had harmed a 7-year-old Lakewood boy by assaulting him Aug. 30.
The program is generally reserved for first-time nonviolent offenders. An Ocean County grand jury had indicted Haikins for bias-crime assault on the child, who Haikins believed had hurt his own children, and criminal harassment of the child and three women who came to the child’s aid.
If Haikins successfully completes the program, charges against him will be dropped and he won’t have a criminal record.
Police said Haikins grabbed the boy, who is black, hit him in the torso and cursed and shouted racial slurs at him. He also threatened three adult relatives of the boy who came to his assistance, according to police.
Detectives were unable to find any evidence that the boy had harmed the two Haikins children.
Giovine said his decision to admit Haikins to the intervention program was based on the fact that he has no prior criminal record and is remorseful over the Aug. 30 incident.
In a letter directed to the three women, dated Nov. 7, Haikins, a member of Lakewood’s large Orthodox Jewish community, said he was sorry for “the inexcusable way I behaved to a child and to you” and that he had failed to respect the child and adults while “carried away by emotion and anger.”
After apologizing in the letter, he pledged not to repeat the behavior.
According to Haikins’ attorney, Barry T. Albin of the Woodbridge firm of Wilentz, Goldman and Spitzer, his client’s fear that one of his children had been injured had driven him into an “irrational, emotional rage” and caused him to lose control.
Last night’s meeting at the Lakewood Community Center, Fourth Street, was attended by 16 people. One of the women, Audrey Wise of 13th Street, said Haikins never sent the letter of apology to the victims. They received a copy later, she said, from the Ocean County Prosecutor’s Office.
After the incident, the boy was taken to Kimball Medical Center, where he was treated and released.
“There’s a perception of favoritism in our community,” said Waters. “Accurate or not, there are implications concerning the stability of the community. All our citizens — especially our youth — have the right not to be intimidated. The boy was victimized and must live with emotional scars.”
Dr. Michael Rush, a Lakewood resident who is superintendent of schools in Red Bank, told the boy’s mother that he would support her.
“(Haikins) should have gone to the (victim’s) home with his apology,” he said. “Justice has been delayed, and justice delayed is justice denied. Organizations here need to rally behind this family.”
Thomas Ross, director of the Lakewood Community Center, said he had lived on 13th Street for 30 years and that a sense of community, once characteristic of the street, has been disturbed.
