A public hearing got violent when a New Jersey mayor charged a critic during a public hearing Wednesday.
According to the Pine Barrens Tribune, Pemberton Township Mayor Matthew Bianchini ran at Michael Sawka and screamed “I am getting you, I am f--ing getting you.”
Ken Gerber, the township’s former director of Community Development and a retired police chief, had just accused Bianchini’s administration of wrongdoing.
That’s when things got heated.
The mayor claimed Sawka was hostile toward his daughter.
Sawka, per the report, called for Bianchini’s arrest for assaulting him and verbally threatening.
“I want the police here to arrest him for that threat! That is assault!” Sawka shouted.
Bianchini refused to apologize.
“I will not apologize for my actions last night. If you attack my family, as that resident did last night, I will act,” Bianchini wrote on Facebook, per The New York Post.
“My wife and daughter were both physically and verbally attacked. Were my actions wrong? Probably. Were they justified? Absolutely!”
“I just basically snapped,” Bianchini told WPVI. “I hate to put it this way, but it’s a long time coming.”
