‘PEACEFUL’ POTHEAD
Violence erupts after event at NJ Weedman’s Joint, video appears to show marijuana activist knock a man out
TRENTON >> NJ Weedman is caught on tape bashing a man in the head with a fire extinguisher, leaving him slumped over inside The Joint during an event last week.
The video appeared on the Funny Memes609 Facebook page and had more than 1,300 views. The brutal encounter happened early Friday morning inside NJ Weedman’s pot enthusiasts sanctuary on East State Street.
Trenton Police Lt. Darren Zappley said police are investigating the assault of two men who NJ Weedman, also known as Edward Forchion, is captured bashing with a fire extinguisher.
Police caught wind of the melee after the victim showed up at the hospital, Zappley said.
No charges have been filed yet, Zappley said, adding the victim was “still groggy from medication” when officers attempted to speak with him.
The video opens with the self-proclaimed “peaceful pothead” walking down a corridor of the Liberty Bell Temple with a red fire extinguisher in his hands.
He’s accompanied by an entourage, including a woman who is heard on the video shouting, “no please” as NJ Weedman walked toward a group of men down the hallway.
A man is heard yelling, “Keep the camera rolling, baby. F*** all that.”
The marijuana legalization activist, undeterred by the apparent camera, proceeds to unload on at least two men.
He claimed in a video he
posted online after the fight that he was defending himself, after he got ambushed and beat up, and his business.
In the video, NJ Weedman can be seen striking one man and then turning his sights on a second man, bashing him in the head twice with the fire extinguisher.
The man collapsed, appearing knocked out cold, with the second blow. He remained slumped up against the wall as NJ Weedman continued wielding the fire extinguisher.
The camera then panned to the unconscious man, as someone taunted him, “N **** sleep,” as he came to.
“Everybody out,” someone shouted.
NJ Weedman, still with the fire extinguisher in his hands, stood at the ready to strike again as two men attempted to shield themselves from the enraged pothead.
Another man tried wrestling the fire extinguisher from NJ Weedman’s hands, but he pushed away the man’s hands.
As the man who NJ Weedman decked in the head struggled to get to his feet, Forchion stepped over him telling everyone still inside the joint, “We ain’t having this at my spot.”
A man was heard telling Forchion, “Weedman, you hit my brother,” as the guy woozily got to his feet and stumbled to the door.
His head and T-shirt was drenched with blood.
NJ Weedman, who declined to comment on the alleged assault or the police investigation, later posted a video on his Facebook page defending himself. The video has since been taken down or made private.
“I feel like I must do it,” Forchion says on the video. “I’ve been having this peace and love argument for years, and then there’s
an incident of violence at my place. This wasn’t my fault. I do apologize to any of the people, the spectators and stuff, the patrons who were there who witnessed [it], to anybody who sees it online now and is like, ‘Oh, my god.’ Listen, that was an aberration. I want to speak directly to the brother who was in the hospital. I have love for all brothers … I don’t have no beef with you or your boys.”
Forchion, who opened The Joint in 2015 across the street from City Hall, has struggled to keep his restaurant and cannabis church alive since he reopened it earlier this year after being released from jail, where he was detained on drug and witness tampering charges stemming from a raid on his East State Street business in 2016.
The self-proclaimed “Political Prisoner #420” spent 447 days in the county jail, and required two trials, before a jury returned a not guilty verdict in his witness tampering case in May 2018.
He was accused of cyberbullying the so-called “rat” by posting videos and social media clips denigrating the cooperating witness for helping police in the raid, which netted more than $19,000 worth of marijuana.
Prosecutors later dismissed or downgraded the remaining charges to Trenton municipal court citing the shift in the “climate of marijuana legislation,” as lawmakers were considering a bill to legalize the plant Forchion has so zealously advocated for over the years.
Forchion said in the video he doesn’t know the status of future hip-hop events at The Joint since they have led to trouble.
“We had a hip-hop night and sh** happens,” he said, describing the event as lively and peaceful for much of the night.
There was “a little sipping but it was mostly smoking.”
He said the fight outside the restaurant broke out around 1:30 a.m. as he and his staff were cleaning up and closing for the night.
Forchion said by the time he got outside he saw three men beating up on another guy. The man ran into his business, he said, while he stayed behind trying to play peacemaker.
“Please not here,” NJ Weedman said he told other who were involved in the initial fight. “I repeatedly said, ‘Please, I don’t need this issue here. Do whatever you’re going to do somewhere else.’”
Forchion said the angry mob didn’t listen, and another man “started wilding” on him, pushing and swinging in the scrum.
Forchion claimed the group pushed their way into the door, and a woman got punched in the face during the ensuing melee.
In his since-scrubbed video, NJ Weedman panned to the fire extinguisher he used to bash the men in the head.
“I’ve always looked at that as a weapon, also as a tool,” he said. “A lot of tools are used as weapons.”
Forchion said the fight inside the restaurant got so out of control he almost decided to arm himself with his sword, panning to it in the video.
He said someone picked up a vase and clubbed him in the side of the head at one point, sending The Trentonian a photo of his bloodied ear.
As he attempted to crawl away to safety, he noticed someone filming and tried to grab the man’s camera and told him to shut it off, he said.
NJ Weedman said he then gathered himself and ran to the room where the fire extinguisher was hanging from the wall. He said he grabbed it and pulled the pin.
“My intention was to come in to spray it, and it wouldn’t spray,” Forchion said.