Friday May 23 through Monday May 26 make up Memorial Day Weekend 2025.  The weather was cold and rainy and the traffic was heavy, but that didn’t stop people from visiting.

During the span of four days roughly 100,000 people visited the Jersey Shore. The main areas of tourist interest were the boardwalks: Jenkinson’s in Point Beach, Seaside Heights Boardwalk, and the Wildwood Boardwalk. However, the worst of the chaotic behavior was in Seaside.

The chaos began on Thursday evening as route 35 was so backed up, the typical 20 minute drive from Point Beach to Seaside Heights took over 1.5 hours. The disorder only escalated from there. 

Starting Friday night around 8:00 pm was the first of 11 potentially deadly stabbings. The first victim was flown to a local hospital by helicopter. This victim, along with many of the other victims, was not cooperative with the police. 

On top of the violence, there were 73 total arrests on the weekend. 52 adults were arrested and 21 juveniles were as well. The heavy amount of activity on the boardwalk forced local police to call in reinforcements of mounted police (police on horseback), as well as State Police, Ocean County Sheriff’s Department, neighboring towns departments and even the FBI. However, the reinforcements did little to control the mess of the boardwalk. 

On Monday, May 26, Memorial Day, at 12:05 am police responded to the 11th stabbing of the weekend and they decided enough was enough. Following the attack, Chief Boyd of Seaside Heights Police shut down the boardwalk as  “a proactive approach to ensure public safety” according to Detective Steve Korman as he told the Asbury Park Press.

Despite the boardwalk being closed many people continued to linger and many fights and altercations still occurred until the boardwalk had been cleared at roughly 6:00am.

Several Officials are now calling for anyone involved in the violent altercations to be facing tougher penalties, and hope that the summer is less rowdy than this past weekend.