Joe Labarbera is the chair of the Sussex County, New Jersey Republican Party. He’s also a concealed carry licensee in the Garden State, and he says he was acting in self-defense when he drew his gun on a fellow motorist last weekend.
Authorities have charged Labarbera with aggravated assault, unlawful weapon possession, and endangering a child, but he maintains he was only trying to protect himself after stopping to help someone on the side of the road.
Joseph Labarbera’s attorney, Patrick P. Toscano, Jr., said his client did not instigate the confrontation and was trying to help another driver who had stopped along Millbrook Road in Stillwater at 2:15 p.m. Saturday.
In a text message to NJ.com, Labarbera said he “did nothing wrong legally or morally.”
“The simple of it is this — our client was threatened with death by an out of control driver last Saturday,” Toscano said Tuesday in a statement.
“Upon seeing another car with emergency flashers activated and stopped in the middle of the road who then pulled over, and in line with his military training, the Chairman slowly approached the vehicle to render aid,” Toscano said. “When he did so, that driver became irate for reasons of which only he knows, screamed uncontrollably and proceeded to threaten the Chairman with death. His actions were nothing short of bizarre.”
Toscano says that’s when Labarbera informed the driver that he had a gun. The attorney insists, though, that his client never drew his pistol from his holster or pointed it at the other man or in the direction of his car, where a child was in the back seat.
The other driver’s version of events is vastly different. In his telling, he was being tailgated by Labarbera, so he pulled over to let him pass. Instead, Labarbera pulled off the road behind him, and while the two argued Labarbera drew his gun and pointed it at the man.
Eventually both parties ended up dialing 911 and driving away, and Labarbera was arrested a short time later after officers spoke to him at a diner and Labarbera informed them that his pistol was in the center console of his vehicle. Under New Jersey law, a firearm must be unloaded and secured in a closed, fastened case or lock box out of sight, or locked unloaded in the trunk, when it’s left in a vehicle.
Toscano said the “other driver is trying to audition for the victim role in a play he himself created. So if he is going to flip the script, he should have at least made the plot credible.”
Labarbera is charged with aggravated assault by pointing a firearm, possession of a weapon for an unlawful purpose, unjustified display of a firearm and endangering the welfare of a child, according to State Police.
He was held at the Morris County jail following his arrest but has since been released.
“I’m confident this will be a case for (2nd Amendment) rights, and I’m confident I will win this case,” Labarbera said.
The NJ.com story features one former colleague who alleges that Labarbera is “full of rage,” and several Republican officials have called on him to step down from his position until the incident has been adjudicated.
I don’t know Labarbera from a Labubu, and I have no idea if he’s as full of rage as his former colleague claims. I do know, though, that concealed carry holders are not always given the benefit of the doubt in anti-gun locales like New Jersey. Was there any actual evidence to back up the other driver’s assertions, or is this a he said/he said case where Labarbera was charged solely on the basis of the other driver’s interview with police?
Maybe investigators have evidence that hasn’t yet been made public that will corroborate the other driver’s account. If not, then this really does come down to two dramatically different versions of the same roadside encounter, and Labarbera deserves the same presumption of innocence as anyone else while the courts sort out which one is true.
Editor’s Note: The radical Left will stop at nothing to enact their extreme gun control agenda and strip us of our Second Amendment rights.
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