{"id":26106,"date":"2026-04-14T13:38:21","date_gmt":"2026-04-14T17:38:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/?p=26106"},"modified":"2026-04-14T13:38:21","modified_gmt":"2026-04-14T17:38:21","slug":"brick-man-charged-with-possessing-destructive-device-in-st-patricks-day-parade-incident","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/2026\/04\/brick-man-charged-with-possessing-destructive-device-in-st-patricks-day-parade-incident\/","title":{"rendered":"Brick Man Charged With Possessing Destructive Device in St. Patrick’s Day Parade Incident"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Handcuffs<\/a>

Handcuffs (Shorebeat File Photo\/ banspy\/ Flickr)<\/p><\/div>\n

A 56-year-old Brick Township man has been charged with possessing a destructive device and false public alarm in connection with an incident that canceled a St. Patrick’s Day parade in Keansburg last month.<\/p>\n

Monmouth County authorities on Tuesday announced the arrest of Christopher J. Otis, who has has been charged with one count of second-degree false public alarm, third-degree possession of a destructive device, and third-degree providing false information to a police officer.<\/p>\n

The charges stem from an incident that occurred March 28, 2026, when Keansburg police officers were called to the area of Beachway and Bayview avenues for a report of a suspicious device. The caller, later identified as Otis, had originally told responding officers that he found the device in the vicinity of the beach, just off of a walking path, the statement said. Otis also allegedly revealed he was employed by Brookdale Community College as the Fire Safety and Environmental Compliance Officer. Responding officers located the device near the staging area for participants in the upcoming St. Patrick’s Day parade.<\/p>\n

An investigation was immediately launched, with the staging area near the parade route secured and, out of an abundance of caution, the parade was ultimately cancelled. Several K9 units conducted a thorough search of the entire area and parade route, which yielded no further discoveries, police said.<\/p>\n

An investigation by local authorities as well as the FBI revealed “conflicting accounts of Otis\u2019 involvement in finding the device,” the statement said. The prosecutor’s office did not specify the exact nature of the device that Otis was alleged to have possessed, nor the details of the “conflicting accounts” that led to his arrest.<\/p>\n

Otis was lodged in the Monmouth County jail pending future court proceedings. A photo of Otis was not released.<\/p>\n

<\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A 56-year-old Brick Township man has been charged with possessing a destructive device and false public alarm in connection with an incident that canceled a St. Patrick’s Day parade in Keansburg last month. Monmouth County authorities on Tuesday announced the arrest of Christopher J. Otis, who has has been charged with one count of second-degree […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":574,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[3],"tags":[5579,5581,3403,4484,5580,5304,4612],"class_list":["post-26106","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-police-fire-courts","tag-christopher-j-otis","tag-destructive-device","tag-false-public-alarm","tag-featured","tag-keansburg","tag-newsbreak","tag-st-patricks-day-parade"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/Screen-Shot-2014-08-25-at-11.57.15-PM.png","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pgt2Ft-6N4","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26106","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26106"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26106\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26107,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26106\/revisions\/26107"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/574"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26106"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26106"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26106"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}