Jets owner Woody Johnson said the team has zero tolerance for brawls at MetLife Stadium like the one last Sunday that caused four arrests, and he predicted a long road back if those fans hope to attend a game again.
Speaking at a Times Square breakfast for the upcoming New York-New Jersey Super Bowl, Johnson didn’t recall posing for a picture with one of the people arrested but deplored the incident and others like it.
“We have no tolerance for those types of incidents,” Johnson said. “Our job is to provide a safe, family environment for everybody. Unfortunately, those things happen. We’ll see what happens to those [arrested]. But we’re putting a lot of time and effort into stopping those kinds of things.”
The latest violent incident at a Jets game came to light when a fan from Long Island was caught on video punching a female Patriots fan in the face moments after Gang Green’s 30-27 overtime victory.
Kurt Paschke, 38, of Holbrook, Long Island, was arrested Wednesday and charged with simple assault and disorderly conduct along with two women, Amanda MacDowell, 25, of Marlborough, Mass., and Jaclyn Nugent, 26, of Boston. A second man who was with the women, David James Sacco, 28, of Boston, also was arrested on the same charges.
New Jersey state police concluded that MacDowell and Nugent had set off the melee by kicking and punching Paschke, who responded by punching Nugent in the face.
It was later learned that Paschke had served nearly three years in prison for knifing a fellow teenager to death in 1992.
Paschke’s past and his role in the fight caused a bit of a stir for Johnson earlier this week when a photo surfaced of the owner posing with Paschke in the MetLife Stadium parking lot before a game earlier this season.
Paschke is a Jets superfan, attending games with his family in a Jets-themed mini-bus.
Johnson frequently visits with fans and takes pictures with them during pregame tailgating, and he said didn’t recall posing with Paschke. But depending on the outcome of their legal case, all four fans face permanent bans from attending any NFL game — and any event at MetLife Stadium — unless they go through the league’s reinstatement process.
That process involves taking an online conduct course, submitting a written apology and then asking permission to attend events at the stadium.
“The reinstatement process is long and difficult,” Johnson said. “If they can go through that, then they’d be considered [for reinstatement] … perhaps.”
Johnson, though, said there is only so much the Jets or any team can do to prevent fan violence.
“Any time you put 80,000 people together in an environment like that, you’re going to have a certain amount of conflicts,” he said. “Our job to reduce those conflicts and respond to them quickly and get to the bottom of it to try and make sure it doesn’t happen again.”