Football fans heading to the Meadowlands for Sunday’s Jets and Monday's Giants home games should set aside more time than usual to get to their seats.
The National Football League said last week that patdown efforts would be increased at all 31 league stadiums for the rest of the season.
The announcement came just days after a Cowboys fan was charged with attacking three Jets fans with a stun gun during an upperdeck altercation at MetLife Stadium on the evening of the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.
Larry McKelvey, 59 of Moncks Corner, S.C., was charged with three counts of aggravated assault and two weapons charges. He posted $22,500 bail Monday night, was released from Bergen County Jail and is staying in Connecticut awaiting his first court appearance. He is due in Bergen County Superior Court on Wednesday afternoon.
McKelvey’s attorney, Hackensack resident Navarro Gray, with the Newark firm Hunt, Hamlin & Ridley, said his client was acting in self-defense.
NFL officials did not cite the stun gun incident Wednesday when they detailed the new security measures, which will include a patdown from the ankles to the knees as well as the already-required patdowns from the waist up.
Jets spokesman Bruce Speight said the change was not based on a specific threat, but is “part of an ongoing effort to provide a safe environment for fans attending the games.”
MetLife Stadium chief executive Mark Lamping said Tuesday that patdown procedures established by the NFL “were in effect at all entry gates” for the Jets-Cowboys game.
But Vinny Struble of Riverdale said that neither he nor countless other fans were patted down, with “one guard trying to check around eight or 10 people at a time” at the Verizon gate as the 8:30 p.m. game time beckoned. Struble said that he and his friends as usual tried to get in about a half-hour early, in this case at 7:30 p.m. for the 8 p.m. pre-game ceremony.
“We missed the pre-game, the kickoff, and the first touchdown,” Struble said of his nearly 90-minute delay in getting to his seat. “When I looked back after getting in, it looked like the whole crowd was getting in simultaneously.”
Speight advised Jets fans to set aside plenty of time for entry into the stadium for Sunday’s 1 p.m. home game against the Jacksonville Jaguars. The Giants put out a similar statement regarding the team’s 8:30 p.m. Monday night game against the St. Louis Rams, advising ticketholders to “be patient.”
Struble will not be attending Sunday’s Jets game, but said he would leave at least an additional 20 minutes to get through the enhanced security. Stu Farber, a former 35-year season-ticket holder from Staten Island who plans to attend the Jets-Chargers game on Oct. 23, said he likely would get in line to get in “at least an hour” before kickoff based on last week’s news reports.
McKelvey, who was wearing a Cowboys jersey, upset fans sitting in Section 324 last Sunday when he did not stand during the playing of the national anthem and allegedly spoke on his cellphone during a moment of silence for victims of the 9/11 attacks.
But Gray said those accusing McKelvey of being disrespectful were spouting racial slurs at him because he wasn’t a Jets fan.
“Mr. McKelvey and his fiancée were both subjected to the indignation of racial epithets and other offensive comments merely because he was wearing a Dallas Cowboys jersey in what was obviously Jets territory,” Gray said in a statement.
Gray said the situation escalated when McKelvey’s fiancée tried to leave her seat to go to the restroom.
“Mr. McKelvey’s fiancée was pushed and almost caused to fall over to the row in front of her and prevented from exiting the row,” Gray said in the statement. “In fact, one of the individuals involved told her ‘take your black ass around the other way.’ ”
Gray said McKelvey was coming to the aid of his fiancée when a “gang of Jets fans that included the alleged victims” assaulted him, fracturing his nose.
“We are bewildered as to why the individuals who were responsible for initiating the attack were never charged with anything at this point,” Gray said in the statement. “However, we are committed to diligently and zealously representing Mr. McKelvey as a result of the charges which were brought against him.”
Ian Cummings, one of the three fans zapped by the stun gun, told the Daily News McKelvey spoke on his cell phone during the National Anthem, which upset a former Marine sitting in the same row. When McKelvey got up during the game, Cummings said he commented and then McKelvey stunned him.
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