Brick Police Officers Cleared in Case of Naked Man in Street Who Died Following Call

Brick police officers respond to a report of a man naked in the street, May 4, 2024. (Credit: NJ Attorney General)

Brick Township police officers were cleared of any wrongdoing in the case of a man who eventually succumbed to a drug overdose in 2024.

The state Attorney General’s office on Wednesday announced that a state grand jury did not find any basis of claims of misconduct at the conclusion of its deliberations regarding a death that occurred following a May 9, 2024 encounter with law enforcement in Brick Township. The AG’s office today identified the civilian who was pronounced deceased at a hospital following that encounter as Robert Gotts, 36, of Brick.

The state also released video within its internal file system showing the encounter, in which police arrived at a home near Wisteria Drive and Vermont Drive to find the man naked in the road, rolling on his side, and yelling incoherently. The officers surrounded the man and repeatedly tried to reassure him that an ambulance was on the way while trying to coax him onto a grassy lawn so he would not suffer further injuries in the street. Shorebeat was working to gain access to the body-worn camera video from the state so it could be republished, however it is available in raw form at this link.

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The man asks for help, and at one point said he took “mushrooms.”

The incident occurred May 9, 2024 and 4:27 p.m. Officers Joseph McGrath, Mark Nixon and Sgt. Jeffrey Person from the Brick Township Police Department found Gotts in a “state of active distress” and ultimately handcuffed and removed him from the street to the nearby grassy area. EMS then responded to the scene and provided medical attention. Gotts was transported to Ocean University Medical Center where he was pronounced deceased at the hospital at approximately 5:48 p.m. An autopsy was performed and the medical examiner concluded the manner of death was accident and the cause of death was “drug intoxication,” according to the AG’s report.

The officers were never suspected of wrongdoing, however a 2019 law requires the Attorney General’s office to conduct investigations of a person’s death that occurs during any encounter with a law enforcement officer or while the decedent is in custody. It requires that all such investigations be presented to a grand jury to determine if the evidence supports the return of an indictment against the officer or officers involved. The grand jury is “instructed on the elements of the potential criminal offenses, including criminal homicide offenses, that could be brought and, as required by statutes, the grand jury is instructed on self-defense and other forms of legal justification.”