My wife and I poke our heads in on our way back from LITM. We tried to get a sense of the beer list. We saw a halfway decent draught list and then we saw an Affligem in someone's hand, which is definitely promising. Do you remember what other bottled beers they had? A good beer list is very important to me.

Well, you seem to think the JCPD are the ones who should be canonized.

Whatever makes you feel safe. Ignorance is bliss.

actually, it does. I know him, know what he's capable of; know that he has know reason to lie about it; know that he doesn't drink or do drugs, when the clutching-at-straws cops tried to smear his name by saying he was drunk or high; know that he's pretty beat up for no good reason; know that his girlfriend's tires were slashed the next morning; know that the JC cops have a history of impropriety.

And it's not that I WANT to believe him because he's my friend. I BELIEVE him because he's telling the truth. Period. You're just some troll message board pseudo pundit who just wanted to stir up controversy by addressing an issue she knows absolutely nothing about.

But why do you assume you're right when you're not even close to being an authority on this matter?

Yes but apparently you don't have any sense of decorum. You don't go around insulting people's close friends. When someone does, normally one would apologize and just walk away. There's a right to opinion and then there's discretion about when to voice one's opinion. You seem to lack the latter.

And why do you choose to believe the police when you don't even know their side of the story. I'm saying I know the side of the story of someone I've known since second grade (nearly 30 years), whom I know to be an upstanding citizen, who never touched alcohol or any drug in his life and has no reason to lie.

What do you know about the cops who attacked him? I'm guessing nothing, as you've never spoken to them.

and no, they were not contacted by me.

Again with the assumptions. Sheesh!

Look, back off. You do not want to be in this fight, trust me.

AND, you said you thought what he said was at least half BS, which is an assumption based on NOTHING.

So, essentially you're calling one of my closest friends a liar. I will not stand for that.

You wouldn't like it if i called you and yours a liar, based on nothing other than my only impression this medium affords me: that you're a loudmouth who likes to make assumptions and blame the victim.

yes, but i am a lot closer to the truth than you are given that i know the person involved and have discussed it at length. You're just making assumptions based on some media reports. You have a right to your opinion, but when you know someone's friend is in the room, are you still going to talk shit about that person knowing full well that that friend will stand at his defense? It's not cool.

And like i said, my opinion is based on more factual information than yours. You seem to just want to be part of the JCPD PR Committee.

yes, and these "contacts" know every phone call that comes in to the assignment desk of every TV network.

Those must be some pretty big ears!

sure, you're entitled to your opinion, but it should be based on something more than unsupported conjecture.

And, as a close friend of the injured party, i will not stand for the insults and character assassination. FACT: Jersey Journal Reported the Incident. FACT: Media outlets picked up on the incident from the jersey journal report and contacted him. It is the job of any NJ reporter to follow all NJ newspapers. FACT: TV media reports didn't surface until three days after the event.

And how could you possibly know for a fact that the media contacted him, when I know for a fact---again, a friend of mathias---they contacted him. I even recommended to him when it happened that he should contact the media, but he said he didn't want to go there.

The bottom line is the cops acted with inappropriate force on someone who was REPORTING not COMMITING a potential crime.

So please, I take personal offense to you smearing my friend's name, so please take your screenname and your unfounded theories and go post on CorruptThugCopsRule.com

As someone close to this case, let me explain. This has been his scheduled court date since the date of the incident, prior to the media involvment. The media contacted him, he didn't contact the media.

Please stop making any two-bit, armchair judge, shooting-from-the-hip accusations without knowing the facts. It's simply offensive to call his story "BS." And, I saw you post on nj.com about the same thing, so it appears that you only exist to assassinate someone's character.

right on, rat!

I have known Matt since we were in second grade. That's 1979, nearly 30 years ago. He has never once touched any drug or even the smallest drop of an alcoholic beverage.

I am an aficionado of high-end beer (Belgians, crafts, etc.) and he always gives me grief about the fact that I put what he calls "poisons" and "intoxicants" in my body. (I don't do any drugs, I'm just into beer, and I drink in moderation. I don't drink to get drunk. I appreciate fine beer like many people appreciate fine wine.) He's good-natured, and non-preachy about it because we are, after all close friends. It's more gentle ribbing than anything else.

But I will say he is very passionate about his opposition to drugs and alcohol, a position from which he has not wavered in his entire life. So the suggestion that he was "high" or "drunk" at the time of the incident is beyond unfounded. He doesn't even know what any type of alcoholic beverage tastes like, which is something very few of us can say.

He has even taken proactive measures to rid his neighborhood of the drug dealers and other sundry low-lifes who have set up shop there and polluted the quality of life.

The union he works for actually sends him on international trips to meet with high-level officials because his higher-ups know that he's probably the only one there who will walk the complete straight-and-narrow while he's away and not get distracted by any sort of drunken debauchery.

This is a man who, in his 20s and early 30s, put himself through college and graduate school, taking six classes per semester while working full time--with no breaks, mind you--and achieved a near-perfect grade point average. He didn't go immediately after college, but he left many of us who did in his tracks as he surpassed our scholastic achievement and career advancement thus far.

So, please, before you make any snap judgments about people's character, learn the facts. The fact is, he was the victim of some rather corrupt, brutal police officers who happen to be employed by what's probably the most corrupt government in the most notoriously corrupt county in the state of New Jersey.

I will not stand for such character assassination by dirty cops or message board posters.