Local news out of Fairview, New Jersey, presents a disturbing scenario: A 62-year-old woman found herself surrounded by an angry crowd of anti-ICE protesters while driving through town. What began as a peaceful Saturday drive quickly turned chaotic when demonstrators swarmed into the intersection, blocking traffic. One protester approached the driver, Linda Roglen, and spat in her face through the open window. Roglen hastily rolled up her window and attempted to inch forward out of harm’s way. In doing so, her car clipped the protester’s foot, which had been placed in the path of her tire. Instantly, the crowd turned on her. Protesters banged on the vehicle and encircled her car, blocking escape. Fearing for her safety, Roglen pressed on the gas slowly, pushing through the human blockade until she finally broke free. Several agitators who refused to clear the path were pushed aside in the process, suffering minor injuries.
This grandmotherly driver’s nightmare did not end there. Rather than receiving sympathy or understanding, Roglen was promptly arrested and now faces serious charges, including four counts of assault by auto for the injuries to her attackers. She’s also been cited for a host of traffic violations (from careless driving to leaving the scene) as if she were a common criminal. Meanwhile, the very protesters who created this hazardous standoff appear to face no consequences at all. The Bergen County Prosecutor, Mark Musella, has thus far only pressed charges against the besieged driver, not the mob that endangered public safety.
What was Roglen expected to do, sit in her car, trapped and terrified, until the mob dragged her out of the vehicle? Common sense and basic decency tell us that an American motorist should not be forced to choose between becoming a victim of mob violence or facing jail for trying to save herself. Simply surrounding a vehicle and trapping a driver is a violent act in itself. We’ve seen this scenario play out in city after city: so-called “peaceful” demonstrations spill into public roads, tempers flare, and law-abiding commuters or bystanders are put at risk.
Even the police on the scene often recognize the peril when a crowd illegally swarms a car. In a similar case just weeks ago in New York, a protester who tried to stand in front of a moving car complained of injury, and officers ticketed her for impeding traffic. The message from that NYPD response was clear: you are at fault. Yet in New Jersey, prosecutors are perversely treating the victim of the mob as the culprit, sending exactly the wrong message. This upside-down approach incentivizes chaos. It tells protesters that they can obstruct highways or surround vehicles with impunity, while drivers simply must cower and hope for mercy.
Florida’s Governor, Ron DeSantis, spoke for millions of commonsense Americans when he addressed scenarios like these. “If you’re driving on one of those streets and a mob comes and surrounds your vehicle and threatens you, you have a right to flee for your safety,” DeSantis said, adding that if a driver fleeing for dear life happens to hit a threatening demonstrator, “that’s their fault for impinging on you”. In Florida, you do not have to be a sitting duck; as DeSantis put it, “You have a right to defend yourself” in such situations. Indeed, under Florida’s recently strengthened anti-riot laws, a driver like Roglen would not be charged for escaping a mob. The Sunshine State decided that protecting the innocent is important. New Jersey should take note.
At least half a dozen states, from South Dakota, Oklahoma, Iowa, Louisiana, Tennessee, and Texas, have adopted rules to deter the tactic of blocking roadways. They call it what it is: a threat to public safety. Advocates of these laws correctly note that keeping protesters off busy roads is a “commonsense way to help ensure public safety.” The New Jersey Legislature should waste no time in following suit. Governor Phil Murphy and state lawmakers ought to craft a “Driver Protection Act” that mirrors the best of these laws: stiff penalties for those who unlawfully obstruct traffic, and immunity, both criminal and civil, for any motorist who injures a road blocker while making a reasonable attempt to flee danger. Such a law would simply codify the right of self-preservation.
While we wait for Trenton to act, there is something that can be done today to correct the injustice unfolding in Bergen County. Prosecutor Mark Musella should immediately dismiss the charges against Linda Roglen as a matter of equity and common sense. This 62-year-old did nothing any reasonable person wouldn’t do when fearing harm. Charging her criminally not only punishes a victim, it sends a chilling message to every driver in New Jersey: “You’re on your own if surrounded by a mob. Defend yourself and we’ll prosecute you.”
Additionally, Prosecutor Musella should file charges against the protesters who created this dangerous incident. New Jersey’s criminal code has a provision tailor-made for such behavior. In New Jersey, disorderly conduct is defined, in part, as when a person “creates a hazardous or physically dangerous condition by any act which serves no legitimate purpose.” Does standing in a busy intersection, unlawfully blocking traffic, and accosting motorists qualify as creating a hazardous condition with no legitimate purpose? It does. These protesters were not exercising free speech on a sidewalk; they were impeding public passage and inciting confrontation. Charge the instigators under N.J.S.A. 2C:33-2(a), the disorderly conduct statute. Enforcing that law here would send a clear and necessary signal. It would tell would-be radicals that New Jersey will not tolerate mob rule in its streets. And it would reassure ordinary citizens that their government values their right to travel unmolested and their right to personal safety above the theatrics of crazed demonstrators.
If a motorist’s only escape from a threatening mob results in a few bruised agitators, that is on the mob, not the driver. New Jersey must correct course. Legislation is needed to protect drivers like Linda Roglen, and in the meantime, prosecutors must use their discretion to uphold justice rather than appease the violent. We are a nation of laws. And in this nation, no citizen should have to fear for their life at a traffic light or face prison for the “crime” of self-preservation.
The right to life and liberty does not end where an unruly crowd’s tantrum begins.
