New Jersey BBQ canceled after "inappropriate" fursuiter conduct

[Conan]

It is with deep regret that due to the actions of a few people....beyond of what we already knew with the reported incident...other poor decision making on the parts of some guests have resulted in NJ Fur-BQ being disbanded from here on out.

We are sorry....the offending folks know who they are.


Thanks to everyone's support over the last 8 years.

Lets just leave it at inappropriate fursuit extra-curriculars leaning on a town council members car in eye shot of his kids....

Because what was done has shed such awful light on furry to the general public in the area that pretty much no one would even think of hosting us. This 'issue' was brought up in an open town forum and televised on public access tv. There is photographic evidence on file with the town, pd, and mayor.... Trust me this is worse than we are leading this to be.

That being said.... Tony, myself, and shortwave are no longer willing to put ourselves on the line for a furry party any longer.

As it is we are waiting for the "other shoe to drop" as it were...

welp

[threadshitter]

Not much info on it yet, nobody is naming names anyway. Will be funny when that happens though.

[Ketsuban]

I don't need names, it's aready more laughs than I've had in months. I knew I visited Vivisector for a reason.

[ColonThree]

So I'm guessing it was one of those godawful suits with the huge tits, or a sheath, or pretending to bugger each other on the car perhaps. None of these would surprise me. I do hope there's pictures.

GJ furries.

--

Update: More info from another journal:

http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/3573735/

[quote snipped since it is now posted below]

Given the reactions,"graphic evidence", and "blow a load on a car hood", it sounds at this point like they were basically fucking on the car or similar. I have to wonder if some people get a similar feeling of anonymity and invincibility from fursuiting that posting on the Internet provides (for those that are already rather disconnected from reality). They completely zone out and forget that, yes, you are in public and, no, you should not be fucking doing that oh god why please stop.

[an hoopoe]

- Yes, there is graphic photographic evidence of "inappropriate fursuit extra-curriculars" taking place on a vehicle, in front of the building in broad daylight during the BBQ. There were kids and a town council member who witnessed this. The pictures were filed at a PUBLIC town council meeting and are now being investigated by the Mayor, Chief of Police, and the squad.

- NO we cannot and will not move the event somewhere else. NJ FurBQ is NO MORE. So please don't ask anymore.

- YES there may be some legal repercussions that may happen to the 2 parties involved.

- For those of you who think that this is "no big deal"... think about this for a second: 1) Furry as a whole is now publicly in the limelight due to this event. I can assure you that this area will be pretty much devoid of furry events...simply because no one will house our events anymore. The EMS and Fire community is small enough that word of this has spread like wildfire in the neighboring communities. 2) Tony is a Lieutenant and Trustee at the Squad... it's possible he may lose his job because of these two idiots... 3) Shortwave, myself, and Aeon also have jobs that could be affected by this as well.

- The Twin "W" Rescue squad was punished because of the actions of these two individuals... because they were the host venue and they bear the town's name. Not only were they the subject of humiliation at a public town meeting but $55,000 was stripped from their annual budget and they are no longer recieving the "go ahead" to order 2 new ambulances...which the squad was pressing for in order to remain in service.

So furries... you've done it again (at least 2 of you). Only this time you took our charity and instead of being the heroes and donating $600 so they could buy new equipment ...we've cost them almost $280,000 (2 ambulances + 55,000). You may have possibly cost up to 5 people their jobs, you've smeared the reputation of furry further into the mud, and pretty much pissed off AT MINIMUM 263 people who rightfully enjoy the FurBQ every year....just so you can blow a load on a car hood. Absolutely disgraceful....and I really hope the town prosecutes the shit out of you for whatever they can.


That is all I am saying about this.... be on the lookout for posts from Shrotwave and Tony as well.... only I don't think theirs will be as "nice".

Thanks a lot... you 2 should be ashamed and I really hope I don't ever find out who it is.

http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/3573735/

My emphasis.

Already, they face a heavy doom in the shape of a permanent ban from a UK furry convention:

If someone does find out who these two are could you please email me at security[at]confuzzled.org.uk so that I may add these two permanently to our ban list.
- Codewolf
(confuzzled head of security)

http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/3573735/#cid:27053210

[winserv03fan]

Only this time you took our charity and instead of being the heroes and donating $600 so they could buy new equipment ...we've cost them almost $280,000 (2 ambulances + 55,000). You may have possibly cost up to 5 people their jobs

$280,000 and five jobs at steak. Is this some kind of new record?

[Kirune]

Pictures and widespread humiliation for the carfuckers may be forthcoming.

Ok folks, I am really amazed at the response, however, I want to clarify.... Tony, Shortwave, Aeon, and I do not physically have the pictures nor do we know who these people are..YET. The city does. Tony is working on viewing them for himself and then will have a go at speaking to these individuals privately. We will then decide what goes on after that.

The address, and more found here for those wondering.

They're even starting a donation account for all those furries with money to burn.

[an hoopoe]

One of the, IMO, pathetic things about these sort of incidents is the rush of posturing and gestures which follow in their wake. Being banned from a UK furry convention isn't punishment enough, no, now they'll be banned from every single furmeet in that nation:

Please PM me the names so I can pass them on to the UKfur.org administration (unless that's done already) and have them banned from all British fur-meets

http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/3573735/#cid:27056197

I'm sure people living in the United States will be very worried!

There is something off about people reacting to this with such hysteria and impotent threats:

Also, I think you should release their names to the rest of the fandom. So no one ever associates with them ever again.

I want the furry and real names of these two to be publicized. I think they should be banned from every furcon from now until the end of time, and ostracized on every furry site. Additionally, whenever an employer looks up their name, I want this to come up. Because they can't figure out that sex does NOT belong in public, no matter if you think you're anonymous, I want their lives to be ruined

these people need to be blacklisted from every con, permabanned (IP as well) from every fur site online

Fuck these people...they don't deserve anymore than an ass beating and permanent shunning from the fandom

Meets, gatherings, online communities...chatrooms... picture databases. Excommunication

I think their names should be exposed so cons/meets can add these idiots to their ban lists, however the admins of FA (and any other site) should be alerted first so their respective profiles can be locked

Looks like it's time for me to go back east and crack some fucking skulls with a tire iron

I sincerely hope that the 2 mother fuckers involved in this senseless act get fucking castrated.

I do think those 2 should be strung up from a tree

Solution: Chemical Castration. That is all.

Chemical castration. Makes sense to me!

Maybe fursuiters in the future should be required to wear one more badge with their human ID on it, and random head-off check to ensure they are who their ID says they are. It would be a tough call but something has to be done about rogue suiters destroying things. Maybe have any fursuiter wishing to attend and be associated with an even sign a legal contract holding them legally, and financially responsible, as well as imposing fines for outright, stupid, irresponsible acts such as this

They lost their right to privacy by engaging in that sort of activity

I honestly hope they come forward or are forced forward and public put on trial and the world is shown that even behavior like this is not tolerate by the furry community as a whole.

^
I'm sure the world is gasping to know that furries are not like this.

They should be banned from future events and should have to explain themselves to the furry community and the people they did this to..

^
The idea of having to explain yourself to the "furry community" seems pretty dumb.

It's all dumb anger and the desire to see people punished. A tremendous overreaction to some people allegedly having sex in public.

Paranoia:

The people who did this could have been trolls / haters, doing it specifically to compromise the event. If they were doing it on the car (not in it like I thought) that sounds like a likely possibility. This makes me even more upset that the hosts were so quick to cancel the whole thing instead of trying to get past the event and find a way to cool things down. If it's the case (no idea if it is) the haters unfortunately won easily.

What if this was fake?

What if it was trolls who bought some animal halloween costumes and wanted to ruin it for everyone else because they knew there would be a shit storm and that no one would recognize them? Everywhere I read it seems like 'no one' saw the people having sex except for the city official and kids (hell it could even be a doctored photo by the city official because they dislike furries.)

It probably was two stupid furs who couldn't keep their dicks in their pants but I wouldn't rule out the possibility of it being a set up given there are plenty of furry haters.

[ColonThree]

It's all dumb anger and the desire to see people punished. A tremendous overreaction to some people being stupid and having sex in public.

I can understand some of the sentiment. Obviously the people going on about castration are retarded, but I think the point is it wasn't just two people being stupid, it was two people being stupid while in their fursuits. 'Representing the fandom', as it were. As a result, instead of just these two idiots facing some issues, I doubt anyone in the area will want to let anyone host anything remotely "furry" near them, and I expect that some silly parents will flip their shit if any of their kids wants to visit a con or is caught on a furry website. 'It's those disgusting costume people!'. Still, I do agree that the vast majority of the reactions are nonsensical.

[Fawksie]

One of the, IMO, pathetic things about these sort of incidents is the rush of posturing and gestures which follow in their wake. Being banned from a UK furry convention isn't punishment enough, no, now they'll be banned from every single furmeet in that nation:

Please PM me the names so I can pass them on to the UKfur.org administration (unless that's done already) and have them banned from all British fur-meets

They can have a hypothetical hero's welcome to the Edinburgh meet from me, just to underline the fact that it matters not one fuck what anybody reports to a couple of forum staff, or what edict those staff decide to issue.

[Jim Demintia]

Is there any external confirmation of any aspect of this story, or is it all FA journals from people balls deep in this mess, who, surely, have no conflict of interest or any reason to put a spin on whatever the hell is going on.

Also, does anyone remember a few years ago when something eerily similar to this happened...the gist of it was that the "furry thing" was used as a bludgeon against an individual during some kind of emergency services fight in some other little podunk Northeastern town. It didn't really have much to do with the actual situation, but these things being what they are the person was vulnerable to this sort of attack since their affiliation with furry and certain fetishy aspects thereof was well known.

[doubtingwolf]

I'm tempted to call shenanigans on this.

Simply put:  Pics or it didn't happen.
Out of all the attendees, NO ONE had a goddamn camera or cellphone with which to snap some photos?

And assuming it did happen, what the fuck did they expect?  "Hey, let's invite a horde of furfags to a public event.  What could possibly go wrong?"

[Jim Demintia]

And assuming it did happen, what the fuck did they expect?  "Hey, let's invite a horde of furfags to a public event.  What could possibly go wrong?"

That's really a stupid thing to say.

Something happened. But until we get some external reportage on what it was, I'm just going to assume the cops got called to the NJ FurBQ for some unknown reason, and everyone's gone into CYA mode. Until the police report is released or local media picks this up, everyone is lying.

[doubtingwolf]

That's really a stupid thing to say.

Hence my doubt as to what, if anything, actually happened.
Meanwhile, let's chew popcorn and wait for more reports.  This might actually get good.

[Conan]

So now it sounds like the council member has the pictures, and are using them as blackmail:

When I was driving up to AC I got a phone call from the Chief, who basically advised me that during the BBQ, there was a pair of fursuiters out in front of the building doing some "activities" and a town councilman, after "receiving a complaint from his neighbor about the party at the squad", decided to come by himself and took a picture of these so called activities. The councilman waited for the public safety meeting to address the concerns with the Chief and President of the squad, making it clear that the squad needed to separate themselves from the perceived acts that us furries are portrayed in doing, with the picture being shown as evidence of the portrail he was referring to.

[ProvincialTwit]

As much as I hate to admit it, I kinda have to agree with doubtingwolf a few posts up.

This supposedly happened several weeks ago (Pre-AC, at least), and if it was really as big a deal as these people are making it out to be, there'd be -some- mention of it in some media somewhere.  I mean, look at the fervor they've whipped up in those comments.  Without any real proof or evidence that what they say happened actually happened, and despite how easy it is to believe it -could- have happened, I think the whole thing needs to be taken with a rather large grain of salt.

It's beginning to feel like the prelude to a witch hunt, really.  Let the anger and the posturing build up, drop a couple names, then sit back and watch the fireworks.

[an hoopoe]

Completely uninvolved person allegedly becomes recipient of dumb anger and outrage:

some idiot posted on a trollsite, blaming my mate Spacewolf for having done it. And now a good deal of furs are believing in that troll-gossip, and are bashing him in Private Messages over FA, making him feel horrible about it.

I know for a fact he's innocent in this. First of all, he's my boyfriend, and I know he would never do such a thing as cheating on me. Secondly, he lives in WISCONSIN, which just happens to be halfway across the freaking U.S, if he'd suddenly travel to New Jersey, I'd be the first to know. And even then I know he wouldn't go there anyway, seeing as he's got TWO jobs, working his ass off.

http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/3577013/
-
Someone on lulz.net is very suspicious:

The more that comes out and the more that changes, the more this appears to be major bullshit.

There is much missing information and several red flags are popping up in my mind.

First he mentions squad lawyer. I am not sure exactly what type of squad he is, but if he works for the city the city has council. Those lawyers do not represent the individual workers and in fact are somewhat adversarial in position.

He also makes the ambiguous statement "due to legal complications"-- this statement a bullshit statement.

Placing civil or criminal responsibility onto the "squad" or other individual persons who did not commit the supposed act is very unlikely giving the available information.*

*Disclaimer: I am only familiar with common law and California law, I do not know the subtle inner workings of New Jersey.

http://lulz.net/furi/res/2169375.html

[Ketsuban]

I know for a fact he's innocent in this. First of all, he's my boyfriend, and I know he would never do such a thing as cheating on me.

I'm amused by how none of them are willing to talk about fucking on a website about fucking. It's all "activities" and innuendo.

[quantityorama]

The who thing pings off the scale on the bullshit meter:

• There's a headline that the press would salivate over, "man dressed as dog has sex with/on car with another man dressed as a dog", and no local or national media has picked it up. Moreover, there's evidence that, if something did happen, the local government is covering it up because it would "look bad". What reporter wouldn't love to dig into that scandal?
• Hundreds of thousands of dollars in funding (depending on which story you read) were to be slashed from a public safety budget, and there's no mention of it anywhere in the news.
• There's "evidence" of a sex crime involving minors, and there's no record of a police report, complaint, or arrest (Important Note: In many states, covering up such a crime is just as bad, from a legal standpoint, as committing it yourself).
• According to at least one account all of this happened *in the parking lot* of a police station in the wake of a relatively high-profile kidnapping within the community, and there was no report, no arrest... Nothing.
• The "evidence" was was presented at a town council meeting which there is no record of, and was apparently not open to the media/public.
  
• Nobody is, or will ever be, allowed to the "evidence" this entire scandal is based on.
• The story has changed several times: First the organizers hadn't seen the pics, then they had and could confirm that they were real and very graphic, then they hadn't seen them and couldn't comment on anything because lawyers are getting involved. First it happened near the police station, then across the street from it, then in the parking lot.

The end sounds a lot like: We have evidence that something "inappropriate" happened, but we aren't going to peruse it any further and we aren't going to let you see it, so you'd best just go away or else we'll make life "difficult" for you. Either that, or the organizers simply got tired of hosting the event. It's easier to blame to anonymous idiots than it is to face the local drama-bomb fall-out from saying "we don't want to do this anymore." I'd make it a 50/50 split between the two.

The fact that this also came out the same day that there were reports of sexual assaults coming out of AC (which were all but drowned out by this story) also raises eyebrows.

[Conan]

On further review...

http://www.westwindsornj.org/documents/2012MunicipalBudget.pdf

West Windsor's 2012 Municipal Budget outlines that $45,000 was allocated to the "Twin 'W' First Aid Squad" (Page 24 in the PDF, Page 7 of the budget itself). Since the story quotes "two ambulances plus $55,000", it appears they've had their entire operating budget plus an additional magic $10,000 taken from them.

Changing a budget, especially to the extremes being mentioned here, is not something that can usually be done in one Town Council meeting. The June 11th meeting agenda doesn't outline any budget changes, nor does it appear on the agenda for the meeting on May 29th, days after this happened. Unless it's upcoming business or a threat to next year's budget, I think it's safe to say something is up here.