>> From NJ PBS studios, this is NJ Spotlight News with Brianna Vannozzi.

>> Hello and thanks for joining us tonight.

>> Good morning.

Coming up later in the broadcast, the deadline is up for towns to comply with the state's affordable housing law.

We'll break down what that means.

Plus a new report on the toll that fatal police shootings have on the officers involved.

And later, March madness has begun and so have the bets the numbers might shock you.

But first, scammers are using many different ploys to steal your money.

One scam that many people have reported recently pretends to be from a court system like Newark, TNAC or Edison.

You might get a text message telling you you need to pay a toll or traffic ticket.

Some have a QR code to pay.

If you get one of these, do not scan the code or follow the prompts.

The New Jersey courts are telling folks instead to go directly to their website to see if you have any valid tickets.

And PSEG scams are also targeting residents sometimes calling from the PSEG phone number, threatening to cut off your service.

If you get one of these calls, they'll probably tell you you can't hang up or service will be cut off.

While PSEG officials say hang up and call back their number 1-800-436-PSEG to confirm the status of your account.

And if someone ever shows up at your door, ask for identification and call the police immediately if something feels off.

Coming up, we take a look at the state's affordable housing law in this last phase of the rollout.

That's >> Funding for NJ Spotlight News, provided by the members of the New Jersey Education Association.

Making public schools great for every child.

>> This week, all 564 of New Jersey's municipalities faced a deadline to comply with the state's affordable housing law.

That means they had to adopt ordinances for how they'll build their share of affordable units over the next decade.

It's been a complicated and controversial journey to get here, and several towns are still not on board.

Even as housing advocates say the state needs more than 200,000 new units to help address the affordability crisis in New Jersey.

Joining me now is Jag Davies, the communications director with the Fair Share Housing Center.

Jag, great to have you with us.

Just really quickly, help folks understand what the Fair Share Housing Center is and how it was created in 1975.

Yeah, New Jersey's affordable housing law is based on a series of Supreme Court decisions in New Jersey known as the Mount Laurel Doctrine.

The Mount Laurel Doctrine says that every municipality in the state has to allow for its fair share of affordable homes.

Fair Share Housing Center was founded in 1975, the year of the first Mount Laurel ruling, by the lawyers and community activists who brought that case.

New Jersey is historically one of the most racially and economically segregated states in the country.

The Mount Laurel Doctrine has played an important historical role in putting a dent in that and integrating New Jersey.

So there have been several rounds of, I would say we're in round four, right, of these towns and municipalities needing to declare how and how many units they'll build.

We're in this fourth round.

Can you just tell us what this deadline this week required for those municipalities?

Yeah, this week was really a historic milestone.

This was the final date in the process for the fourth round, by which point every municipality had to submit their final fair share housing plans, explaining and detailing how they're going to allow their fair share of affordable homes.

Historically, the Mount Laurel Doctrine has not always been enforced adequately, and some towns have tried to skate around their affordable housing requirements.

In 2024, a new law was passed that really strengthened for the Mount Laurel Doctrine and for the first time really gave it real teeth.

And it made the process a lot more streamlined and a lot easier for towns to participate.

And as a result, we've seen historic progress.

Over 400 of the state's towns have now adopted their final implementing ordinances to allow their fair share of affordable homes.

The vast majority in the state and far more towns than ever before that have participating in the process.

I think it really shows how the politics of affordable housing and housing more broadly are changing.

It's got so bad now that housing costs have gone up so much faster than people's incomes.

And even people with several full-time jobs and households with several working parents aren't able to afford a decent place to live.

Let me jump in there, Jack, because you say that the law made it easier for municipalities to comply with the law.

Many, and this crosses the political divide, Democrats and Republican mayors alike say that the law puts requirements on them that they simply can't meet.

They say they don't have the infrastructure, they don't have the water, the schools, the space, they have to give up green space in order to build.

Some have even taken legal action against the law.

Did not work.

But just help us understand how and when you decide to kind of critically look at some of these municipalities that say they can't meet their fair share, they can't comply with the next round.

When do you take legal action?

When do you step in?

There's only about 20 towns left at this point that we haven't reached settlement agreements with and that are not moving forward with creating affordable housing under the law.

For those towns, those cases will be heard by a judge in the summer.

The reason why so many towns are complying with the law and participating is because they have wide latitude to create affordable housing in the way that works best for their towns.

No one is coming in and saying you have to put this exact type of housing in this exact place.

Towns have a lot of latitude in the process.

They can create 100% affordable housing.

They can create mixed income housing that also includes a substantial amount of market rate housing.

They can create supportive housing for seniors and people with disabilities.

Some are repurposing old space, right?

Just talk about some of the, I guess, more creative ways that municipalities are addressing this.

- Yeah, a lot of the affordable housing projects under the fourth round are redevelopment projects, not paving over green space, but utilizing underused properties, abandoned malls, empty offices.

And that really has a lot of benefits because from an infrastructure perspective, you already have roads, you already have electric and sewer and infrastructure there.

So all over the state, there's towns who are revitalizing underutilized areas, areas that are central in their town, near transit, but that have been essentially underused.

Jag, let me ask you this.

New vibrant mixed income communities.

We've been following the case where about two dozen towns tried, like I said, to fight this in the courts.

They were hoping that it went all the way up to the U.S.

Supreme Court.

Justice Samuel Alito, who is a New Jersey native, they were hoping that he would hear the case.

What happened there just recently?

That case, that lawsuit has failed at every level of the process.

It was rejected at multiple levels of the state courts.

And then this small group of 20 towns went to the Supreme Court and asked them to pause the implementation of New Jersey's affordable housing law.

And Justice Alito declined that and said that the -- that means that the law has to move forward and that towns need to meet the deadlines this much -- month to meet their affordable housing requirements.

>> Just very quickly -- >> As long as -- sorry.

>> Very quickly, some say, look, this is a burden on small communities.

There are many small communities in New Jersey.

And why not look to the big cities where there's better infrastructure, transportation, more access to jobs?

The law has not agreed with that thinking, though.

Why not?

Well, actually, under the affordable housing law, each town has an individualized requirement, where towns near transit with more space in more urban areas have much higher requirements, and towns in more rural or suburban areas have much lower requirements.

But everywhere in the state is facing an affordability crisis.

And New Jersey, as I mentioned, is a very historically segregated state.

And so it's really essential for communities across the state to create more inclusive communities.

And the reason most towns are participating in the process is because they realize that it's good for their local economies.

It helps support small businesses.

It brings in new property tax revenue.

So there's a lot of benefits to even the smaller towns and creating new affordable housing.

And of course, there's transformative benefits for residents who are able to access housing in high opportunity communities.

We can't just segregate affordable housing only in urban areas.

We have to have a solution to the housing crisis.

We have to leave it there.

But I thank you for your time today.

Jag Davies, communications director with the Fair Share Housing Center.

Thanks for having me.

New Jersey's men and women in blue have been governed by a use of force directive from the state's attorney general for the last several years.

It creates guidelines for how and when police can use force.

The directive was first issued in 2020 and updated in 2025, but this January, the guidelines were signed into law by Governor Murphy.

Now that law states that deadly force can only be used in situations of last resort and that officers can only use proportional and necessary force.

It also requires de-escalation training during basic training.

And while much of the focus in recent years has been on the victims of deadly police shootings, NJ.com's Riley Yates took a look at the toll that these incidents also take on the officers involved.

He joins us now.

Riley, thanks so much for being with us today.

You know, we don't always, often, look at the impact of police shootings on police officers themselves.

We often look at the victims and their families.

But you took a really in-depth look at certain individuals whose lives have really just been upended by their involvement in police shootings.

First, let's just talk about what the reality is in terms of how many there are here in the state in a given year.

Yes, so there's about 10 fatal police shootings every year.

So from my count since 2019, there have been, I believe, 68.

And obviously, they're all different.

They're all fact-specific, right?

Some are more justified than others.

But the vast majority, of course, are deemed justified by authorities, ultimately.

Some of the data also shows that, I think, in these 68 cases that you're referencing, more than half of the people who were killed had a gun, about a third had some type of knife or machete.

That's right.

But you spoke to some officers who were involved in shootings, some directly, some less directly.

What did you hear from them in terms of the impact that it had on their lives?

Well, yeah, that's the... And this was a story, honestly, that I'd been wanting to tell for probably almost two decades now, because I've covered police shootings for a long time, and it's one of those kind of hidden costs that we don't talk about.

We tend to focus on the, of course, rightfully, we focus on the victims and we focus on, you know, the legal process and were they justified, weren't they justified, and all of that.

But there's also a very human side for these cops who are, you know, often so traumatized by what they went through that they're unable to even return to the job.

And so, for my main piece here, I spoke to three cops, two who had killed people in the line of duty and one who had been shot at in the line of duty.

And then the gunman took his own life in front of him.

And all three of them retired with disability pensions.

And the main officer I featured, Michael Arena, who was a Ventnor cop who shot a suicidal man who was armed with a broken bottle.

He became, it basically upended his life.

He was unable to basically non-function.

He was, three months after it happened, he was sitting on his couch and contemplating suicide himself.

He had a gun and was thinking about how he was going to do it.

And it just so happened that his girlfriend at the time came home and thwarted that.

But it was it's a it's a side that you don't hear it very often.

And it's really a lot of sad stories.

You detail just crippling anxiety and a whole host of other responses is very tied to PTSD.

There's a real cost to systems as well right to taxpayers to departments when these officers can't return to the job.

What happens financially even to municipalities as these cases play out.

Well yes it's very expensive.

You know so the obviously if you have a cop who's retiring at 28 and collecting two thirds of their salary for the rest of their lives.

That's a that's a big expense to to taxpayers.

There's also you know they they receive health insurance for the rest of their lives which can cost fifty thousand dollars a year.

And I think and then of course there's overtime when they can't when those officers can't work.

They have to be covered by other people.

And they also have to be you know even even bringing a new recruit in and to replace them is expensive.

That can be one hundred and twenty five thousand dollars.

And then the legal process right.

Legal battles that play out for municipalities.

Oh yeah.

And of course you have civil lawsuits that often can top a million dollars.

So it's a very expensive thing.

And that's not to say that it shouldn't be.

I mean it's I think people might not blame you know people may not resent that a cop who is having trouble doing their job you know gets a pension and is allowed to to stop doing that job that was so traumatic to them.

And that's actually probably a safety valve that protects both the public and the officer and the officer's colleagues.

Right.

Because many of them said I simply couldn't because I was a different person.

I couldn't safely perform my function as an officer given the stress they were feeling.

Right.

Yeah exactly.

One of the one of the officers I talked to from Brick Township you know he said to his chief look I'm not going to be the same officer I'm I'm going to go to a first aid call and I'm going to pull out my rifle.

And suffice to say that you don't want that.

That's not a good outcome.

You took a follow up story that ran today.

A look at some of the de-escalation techniques that are rolling out around the state that have had a lot of success.

We're also going to look at this new use of force policy that was codified into law.

But let's just start with Camden because you use them as an example.

They have this training program that's a simulation.

What happens there.

Yes.

So I went down to to their simulation and what they what they do is they they run through, you know, different scenarios that they, you know, might encounter.

And in the case that I was at, they were they showed a man with a knife.

And so they they practice that.

And so let's say 20 years ago, a man with a knife, you'd you'd go up, the police would pull their guns on them, he the police would yell, drop the knife, drop the knife, drop the knife, it would it would either the person would drop the knife or it would escalate into a into a worse situation.

And so what they try to do is they try to look for ways, are there ways to avoid that.

And so, you know, they, they practice all these different de escalation techniques.

You know, it's interesting, it's actually kind of simple stuff, even it's just like, the officer keeps the gun behind their back, the officer, you know, retreats when when he or she can, it's kind of just the basic stuff of let's try to call, let's try to slow down the process.

Let's try to keep everybody calm.

Let's not, you know, let's try to do everything we can to not have this go off the rails.

And a lot of that was outlined in this use of force that was once a directive from the Attorney General's office, now codified into law, one of the last few pieces of legislation that Governor Murphy signed.

Can you just detail a couple of the kind of elements of that that officers across the state will need to adhere to?

Well, the basic idea is you're supposed to only use force as a, quote, "absolute last resort."

And so it tries to limit that to situations where you only - where you have no choice.

And you know, suffice to say, there are instances where police do have no choice.

And from talking to -- you know, the most obvious examples are when someone has a gun, right?

Most -- I talked to one expert who said, you know, most police officers, if someone pulls a gun on them, they're going to shoot, right?

And that probably isn't too surprising.

Yeah.

And of course, immediate prompt medical assistance, respect the sanctity of life, and follow any guidelines for de-escalating as we talked about.

Riley Yates, lead data reporter for NJ.com.

Great reporting.

Thanks so much for sharing it with us.

Well, yeah.

Thank you for your interest in it.

March Madness has officially begun.

The NCAA tournament will see 64 teams face off in the And while they square off on the court, fans across the country will create their own competition by betting on the games.

In fact, some $3.3 billion is expected to be wagered through state-regulated sportsbooks.

That's according to the American Gaming Association.

And some of those bets will be prop bets, a controversial market that's restricted in some states.

BJ Schechter is the executive director for the Center for Sports Media at Seton Hall University, and he's here now to discuss the surge in sports betting and the impact it's having on the game.

In sports betting and the potential risks involved.

BJ, welcome to the show.

Great to have you.

Thanks for having me.

Great to be here.

So betting on the NCAA tournaments is up about 54 percent in the last three years.

That is also according to the American Gaming Association.

Why?

Well, I think you hit it in your intro.

It's prop bets, and prop bets are problematic, meaning you can bet on everything from who scores first, who gets the first dunk, who gets more rebounds, more turnovers, every little part of the game you can now bet on.

So the NCAA tournament in March Madness has gone from everybody fills out a bracket.

It's all in good fun.

You know we throw in 10 bucks.

You know you can win a couple bucks at the end to you know it's it can be very addictive and you can get into a deep hole very quickly.

Yeah we're going to get into that in a minute.

But the NCAA has actually requested a suspension of college sports prediction markets.

The CT the CFTC which is the Commodity Futures Trading Commission has not granted that.

What are the concerns that the NCAA has expressed over this type of betting.

Well you're seeing now I mean it started in the pro leagues mainly the NBA where you had the Tim Donahue scandal with the officials, then you have Chauncey Billups and Terry Porter you know with gambling and being influenced in trading information, and just recently within the last two months you had several college players arrested and it all had to do with prop bets.

So it's not necessarily influencing the score of the game or the line even, it's influencing these prop bets.

Which is really essentially influencing markets right now, right, given the size of the betting that goes on?

Yes, and what you saw in the college ranks were not your Dukes and your Michigans and your Kansases.

They were the very under-the-radar type of programs where there's not a lot of activity.

It's very hard to detect.

So you look at the NCAA and there are 330 plus Division I men's college basketball teams.

It's very hard to stay on top of that.

And so what the NCAA is trying to do is saying, you know, to the government, "Help.

This is a problem and we can't manage it."

Yeah, and there is no real clear answer from the government at this moment.

But here in New Jersey, the government did make it illegal to bet on college sports.

You also can't bet on New Jersey sports teams if you're here in New Jersey, no matter where they're playing.

Just explain what the risks are for anyone who might decide to try to do that.

Yeah, I mean, there are very serious penalties.

You know, you could be looking at jail time, you could be looking at felonies, you could be looking at permanent records, criminal records.

And so I applaud New Jersey for, one, not allowing people in New Jersey to bet on New Jersey teams.

Because if you think of, you know, Rutgers and Seton Hall and Princeton and Ryder and some of these other Monmouth, some of these other Division I teams, that it's much easier to get to the players and try to influence what happens on the court, which would in turn influence these prediction markets and prop bets.

And just to bring that point back the NCAA says that it needs these protections actually to protect its players and to protect its students.

Why.

Explain that a bit more.

Well you think about college students and their, you know, members of the college student population.

And so technically an NCAA Division One student athlete is only allowed to play and practice 20 hours per week.

Now we know it's a lot more than that, but the point being is they have classes, they live on their own, they have a lot of free time, so it's really, really hard for a college or university to properly protect a player because they're left on their own.

They're reachable via social media.

Yeah.

They could be influenced, in other words.

They can.

It's very easy to get a college athlete as opposed to a pro athlete where there's a lot more protections built in.

And just quickly looking at the impact of the rise of gambling, 2.5 million people, about 1% meet the criteria nationally for having a severe gambling problem.

But then when you look outside of the country in New Jersey, that's about 6%.

And that's according to Rutgers University study.

What toll is this taking on humans here?

What's the human impact?

It's really scary because we're starting to get some data but we really won't know the full impact for another five to ten years.

But the fact of the matter is it's easier than ever to gamble.

You can gamble from your phone at any time of day.

And yes , if you're below 18, technically you're not allowed to gamble.

But kids are smart, they're savvy, they can get around it.

So they're starting younger and they're doing it 24/7.

So we're starting to see some of the negative impacts and effects.

We're going to see that 5 to 10 fold in the years to come.

And as if our phones weren't addictive enough, for folks who are struggling with any type of addiction, having that gambling at your fingertips just worsens the problem.

BJ Schachter, appreciate you being with us tonight.

Thanks for the insight.

Thanks for having me.

Finally tonight, if you're one of the lucky ones who has a ticket to any of the World Cup matches that will be played here this summer, plan to leave your car at home.

The official say there will be no parking at the stadium for the eight matches in the Meadowlands, including the final on July 19th.

And yes, that means no tailgating either.

The New York-New Jersey host committee say fans will need to rely on public transportation to get to the games, using a mix of NJ Transit, park and rides, and rideshare options.

They'll release more schedule and ticket information in the coming weeks so you can plan your travel.

But the good news, NJ Transit and other agencies are planning to expand their train, bus, and shuttle schedules to make sure everyone gets to the games.

That's going to do it for us tonight.

I'm Joanna Gaggis.

For the entire team here at NJ Spotlight News, thanks for being with us.

We'll see you right back here tomorrow.

NJM Insurance Group, serving the insurance needs of residents and businesses for more than 100 years.

[Music]