EATONTOWN, N.J. – A retired police
officer was arrested and charged with
trespassing this week for witnessing
to patrons of a New Jersey mall.
David Wells is a former corporal with
the Long Branch Police Department,
and over the past year, he has spent
time sharing his faith at the
Monmouth Mall in Eatontown. Wells
says that he likes to distribute
materials from Ray Comfort’s Living
Waters Publications to shoppers in
hopes that it will cause them to
ponder matters of eternity. This past
week, he handed out Comfort’s trillion
dollar bill tract while asking a “trillion
dollar” question.
“I simply approached individuals and
asked them if I could ask them a
question. If they said no, I left them
alone,” Wells explained. “If they said
yes I simply asked, ‘Are you going to
Heaven?’ How I responded was based
on how they answered that
question.”
Wells states that he has witnessed to
mall patrons in the presence of mall
security without issue in the past.
However, this past Tuesday, things
were different.
“The mall security came over and
immediately told me to stop what I
was doing and to leave the property,”
he explained. “They indicated that
the mall was private property and
[that I couldn't distribute tracts there]
.”
But Wells noted that the state courts
had declared malls a quasi-public
venue, and “with that understanding I
went to the mall to talk to people
about the Gospel.”
The New Jersey Supreme Court ruled
in 1994 in the case of New Jersey
Coalition Against War in the Middle
East v. J.M.B. Realty Corporation that
malls followed the “historical path of
free speech,” in the vein of parks,
squares and downtown business
districts. It allowed citizens to leaflet
both inside and outside malls, but
did not endorse other forms of
expression such as public speeches.
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“We believe that this constitutional
free speech right, thus limited, will
perform the intended role of assuring
that the free speech of New Jersey’s
citizens can be heard, can be
effective, and can reach at least as
many people as it used to before the
downtown business districts were
transported to the malls,” the court
wrote.
The justices also outlined that a
complaint is not enough to force
termination of the right to free
expression. Wells stated that he was
unaware of a complaint, but said that
it might have been the instigator that
eventually forced him out of the mall.
“[S]ome people will not like it, any
more perhaps than they liked free
speech at the downtown business
districts. Dislike for free speech,
however, has never been the
determinant of its protection or its
benefit. We live with it, we permit it,
as we have for more than two
hundred years,” the court stated. “It
is free speech, it is constitutionally
protected; it is part of this State, and
so are these centers.”
However, when Wells asserted that he
had a right to distribute tracts in the
mall, security called the police.
Police contended under threat of
arrest that Wells must leave as the
mall is privately owned.
“I was polite about it,” Wells said. “I
told them I didn’t want to get
arrested. I wasn’t trying to make a
scene, but I also wasn’t doing
anything wrong.”
When Wells continued to assert that
his activities were not unlawful, he
was put in handcuffs and transported
to the Eatontown police station for
processing. He was formally charged
with trespassing and plead not guilty
in court on Thursday.
“I want to emphasize that I was not
making any public spectacle: no
signs, no loudness, no offensive
language. I was simply trying to talk
to people,” he stated. “If we’ve gotten
to the point in the U.S. that we
cannot talk to other people civilly,
we’re in trouble.”
Wells will face a trial on December
5th. He is currently seeking legal
representation in the matter, and in
the meantime, supporters have
launched a petition to defend free
speech at the Monmouth Mall.
http://christiannews.net/2013/11/10/retired-police-officer-arrested-for-sharing-gospel-in-new-jersey-mall/