OCEAN CITY — The Ocean City Police Department (OCPD) came under fire somewhat this week for alleged misinformation about a pair of accidents this month including a fatal pedestrian collision, but resort officials sternly rejected the notion and fiercely defended the department.
Shortly after 1 a.m. on May 3, a 67-year-old Pennsylvania man was struck and killed by an Ocean City Police Chevy Tahoe patrol vehicle driven by an on-duty five-year veteran on Coastal Highway at 94th Street. The pedestrian was crossing Coastal Highway from east to west in the north crosswalk against the pedestrian signal when he was struck by the police vehicle in drizzly, foggy conditions.
The officer was traveling southbound on Coastal Highway on routine patrol at the time of the incident. The victim was transported by Ocean City EMS to Atlantic General Hospital where he was pronounced deceased. In a second incident, an OCPD vehicle collided with the rear of a municipal bus. During the public comment period of Monday’s Mayor and Council meeting, a pair of local residents called into question the OCPD’s handling of the incidents and law enforcement in general.
The Maryland State Police is investigating the fatal pedestrian collision involving the OCPD officer and the investigation is ongoing and no final report has been released. However, local resident George Leukel suggested the officer was likely distracted by her in-car computer at the time of the collision. Leukel also contributed to the other incident involving a bus to distraction caused by the in-car computer.
“In the last month or so, we’ve been having a problem with our Ocean City police officers using computers in their cars and being distracted,” he said. “We’ve had two serious accidents in a month.”
While the OCPD has been forthcoming with the information available on the fatal accident, Leukel continued to hammer the Mayor and Council on the availability of video footage allegedly captured from surveillance cameras in the 94th Street area.
“Why hasn’t the city released the video of this accident and let us know what’s going on?” he said. “There have been two accidents in a month. Is the City Council considering any kind of policy for police officers turning off their computers while they are driving?”
Local resident Randy Hill also hammered the council about the alleged wrongdoing of the police involved. Hill commented on the fatal collision in Ocean City specifically, and law enforcement on the shore in general.
“If you notice, cops kill a lot of people on the shore,” he said. “They run them over in Berlin and they run them over here.”
The OCPD officer involved in the fatal pedestrian collision has been on administrative leave while the MSP investigation is ongoing. Hill said internal police investigations almost always favor the officers involved and called for that practice to come to a halt.
“The cops investigate themselves and they always find no wrongdoing,” he said. “They get a paid vacation for two weeks when they kill somebody and that needs to be stopped.”
Hill, a member of Cop Block, a watchdog group of sorts that reports alleged police abuse, brutality and corruption, continued to hammer the council over the MSP investigation.
“You said the Maryland State Police are investigating,” he said. “We’d like to see the information released to the public. We want to know everything about it.”
Hill even offered a veiled threat of a Cop Block presence in the resort in June.
“When the youth come here for Senior Week, we’re going to have 28 young people from New York, Philly and Baltimore and we’re going to do documentaries on cops out of control,” he said.
The council reacted with disappointment and consternation over the attacks on the department.
“As I listen to the discussion tonight, it’s a shame we’ve gotten to the point in this country that we always assume that somebody isn’t telling the truth,” said Mayor Rick Meehan. “We always assume somebody else is lying or not going to give us accurate information, or we become them and assume the police officer was on a computer during a certain point in time. I think that’s doing the same thing.”
Meehan assured the public the accident investigation results would be made available to the public.
“These accidents are being reviewed by the Maryland State Police and I think all the answers to your questions will be available in due time and they certainly should be,” he said. “Hopefully, that will become available and in the meantime, let’s consider again innocent until proven guilty.”
As for the council, some members had nothing but disdain for the comments and innuendos about the handling of the investigation.
“I think some of the comments here tonight have reached a new low,” said Councilman Wayne Hartman. “That’s disheartening.”
Councilmember Mary Knight used the backdrop of National Police Week to illustrate her disgust with the suggestions offered by some.
“We just as a nation finished observing National Police Week,” she said. “National Police Week is a week of observance where groups of people come together to remember fallen police officers. They remember the survivors and they remember their families. It’s all extremely peaceful and thankful.”
Knight took umbrage with the comments made about the OCPD allegedly not being entirely forthcoming with information about the fatal pedestrian accident.
“I wasn’t even going to bring it up tonight, but with the comments I’ve heard, that honestly angered me to my basic inner soul,” she said. “I thought it was very important to remember those men and women who, when you call 911, they don’t ask who you are or do you belong to this organization. I just want to thank all of the people that have done what they’ve done for us to make Ocean City a safe place.”
