Wild video shows Jersey Shore police officers put surfer in chokehold over beach admission pass
When local police forcibly arrested surfer Liam Mahoney, there was a wild scene on Belmar Beach in New Jersey. Outrage and concerns regarding the use of force have been raised by the incident, which was caught on camera. The encounter happened on August 20, 2024, near the 19th Avenue beach entrance in the Monmouth County borough.
Witnesses claim that Mahoney’s failure to show off a beach access pass on his wetsuit was the initial cause of the trouble. But according to reports, the pass was tied to his possessions, which resulted in a heated exchange with the police. Belmar requires a beach badge seven days a week from Memorial Day through Labor Day, with a daily tag costing twelve dollars under a state statute, N.J.S.A. 40:61-22.20, that lets shore towns charge anyone using the sand. Surfers have long argued the rule is impractical for them, since pinning a metal badge to a wetsuit ruins the suit, so most clip it to a bag instead.
Mahoney’s attempts to clarify his circumstances led to an intensified exchange. Hear the woman, clearly upset, yelling, “His badge is right here!” and raising concerns about the officers’ actions.
“Are you gonna get 10 more cops, and another cop car, to do what?” the woman defiantly shouted at the beach cops.
The next scene in the video depicts Mahoney being put in a chokehold and forced to the ground, much to the surprise and horror of bystanders, some of whom are young. While the surfer is being violently restrained, one witness can be heard screaming, “Get off of him!”
Mahoney was charged with disorderly conduct, resisting arrest, and obstruction of justice following the incident, for which he was placed under arrest. In addition, he received a citation for failing to have a beach badge, the Asbury Park Press reported.
“A local surfer was arrested at Belmar Beach on 19th Avenue for not displaying a beach badge on his wetsuit, despite having the badge attached to his beach bag,” Austin Downs, a witness posted on Facebook in the description of his video of the incident, “during the arrest, officers placed him in a choke hold and threw him to the ground.”
The Belmar Police Department has promised to conduct a comprehensive review of the circumstances and has begun an investigation into the matter. The Surfrider Foundation of Jersey Shore has also voiced concern about the incident, describing it as “disturbing” but recognizing the paucity of information surrounding the circumstances leading up to the arrest.
The event has sparked debate about the appropriateness of law enforcement using force, especially when it comes to minor infractions. In such cases, there is a growing call for increased accountability and transparency. The anger spread quickly beyond the beach: a petition on Change.org calling on the borough to “decriminalize beach access” gathered more than 1,400 signatures within days, and other surfers came forward to say the same officer had been singling out surfers earlier that afternoon.
The day after the bystander clips went viral, Belmar Police Chief Tina Scott pushed back. On the night of August 22, 2024, she posted the arresting officer’s body-worn camera footage to the department’s Facebook page, arguing the arrest was never about the badge itself but about Mahoney refusing to cooperate. The arresting officer, identified as Special Officer Ryan Braswell, can be heard explaining the badge requirement and asking for identification so he could write a summons. According to Scott, Mahoney answered “I do not need one,” declined to give his information roughly nine or ten times, and walked away after being told he was not free to leave, which is when the officers moved in and took him down. The footage shows one officer striking Mahoney in the back during the struggle, while a woman an onlooker identified as his sister tried to interfere and show police the badge.
The controversy echoed broader concerns about heavy-handed policing of trivial matters, the same pattern seen in other caught-on-camera cases such as the Arkansas officer who was fired after video showed him beating a handcuffed man. Critics argued that whatever Mahoney did or did not say, a twelve-dollar beach-tag dispute should never have ended with a man being choked and tackled in front of children.
The case wound through the local court for nearly a year. In early June 2025, Mahoney accepted a plea deal, pleading guilty to the beach badge ordinance violation along with the disorderly persons offenses and agreeing to pay a combined 1,410 dollars in fines and court costs. Under the arrangement he was placed into a diversionary program, with the understanding that the more serious charges would be dismissed once he completed it. No officer was publicly disciplined as a result of the department’s review, leaving many in the surfing community feeling the accountability they had demanded never arrived.
