OCEAN CITY, Md.- Ocean City police are bringing in reinforcements in response to days of fighting and brawls in the resort town.
OC police say there were some fights Wednesday night, but on a smaller scale. Police say they mostly responded to accidents and disorderly calls Wednesday night. It comes after a brawl was caught on camera Tuesday night on the boardwalk. Police are still trying to identify the suspects and the victim in that brawl. WBOC has also obtained video of another fight in Ocean City the same night.
Mayor Rick Meehan tells WBOC in a statement, "The violence and unruly behavior seen on social media has no place in Ocean City. Breaking of our laws will not be tolerated. We held an emergency police commission meeting yesterday to address our enforcement strategies and deployment techniques. Our top priority is to keep our residents and visitors safe and we are going to use every resource available to do so."
In Wednesday's emergency police commission meeting, city leaders discussed strict enforcement policies and decided to bring in allied agencies, like the Worcester County Sheriff's Office and Maryland State Police, to increase police presence and visibility.
"You're going to see our allied agencies both on the boardwalk, your side streets, up and down coastal highway but also our neighborhood because that's where a lot of our residents and individuals are staying," Ashley Miller, deputy communications manager for OCPD, says. "So we want to make sure our neighborhoods are safe as well, and not just solely focus on the boardwalk, but you will see a much higher presence on the boardwalk because that is where we're seeing incidents."
Some people we spoke with on the boardwalk say they think increasing police presence may be a good idea. Moving forward, OC urges people to say something as soon as they see something. The encourage people to call 911 as quickly as possible.
"Because with the Tuesday brawl, in that video, you can see everyone is filming that fight and it took nearly three minutes for us to get a 911 call. Our officers are out on the boardwalk," Miller says. "But we do also have other calls for service going on."
This is the time of year that many high school seniors come down to Ocean City to celebrate graduation. But, Ocean City police say they cannot attribute just one age group to many of these incidents. They do, however, notice that the boardwalk is a lot more packed with people of all ages, since restaurants remain largely closed.
