The brother of a bride bit a cop during a wild brawl among more than 100 guests of a Long Island wedding on Monday night.
Smithtown park rangers, Head of the Harbor police officers and Suffolk County cops from several precincts responded to a massive melee among attendees at a wedding reception in Saint James after an unwanted guest showed up just before 8 p.m., police said.
“From preliminary reports, it looks like an uninvited guest showed up and that triggered a chain of events, which ended up turning into a large fight,” Suffolk Chief of Patrol Gerard Hardy said, according to News12 Long Island.
When dozens of officers descended on the scene to break up “multiple skirmishes” at the wedding venue Flowerfield Celebrations on Mills Pond Road, they were met by a violent crowd.
Justize Murphy, 22, allegedly sank his teeth into the arm of a cop and punched him in the face as he tried to restrain him during the hubbub.
His attorney later identified him as the brother of the bride to the local station.
The officer suffered “immediate pain and redness” to his left forearm, according to court documents obtained by News12.
He was treated at an area hospital and released.
Murphy, of Mastic Beach, was arrested and charged with second-degree assault.
He was held overnight and released with GPS monitoring following his arraignment at First District Court in Central Islip on Tuesday.
He pleaded not guilty and his attorney George Ducan maintained his client’s innocence.
“My client has never been arrested before, has no prior contact with the criminal justice system whatsoever, has never so much as gotten a speeding ticket,” he told the local news station outside the courtroom.
A second wedding guest, Qeywon Wilson, was accused of shoving another officer who was trying to stop the fighting.
He was arrested and charged with obstructing governmental administration and harassment, cops said.
Suffolk police said it took them about 40 minutes to get the rowdy wedding guests under control.
Flowerfield Celebrations told reporters it had never experienced a situation like the Labor Day wedding fiasco in its nearly 35 years of operations.