Ocean City’s police chief said police activity jumped last month at the start of the spring Cruisin’ event, but that additional work is being done behind the scenes to address issues at future events.
On Monday, as part of his monthly report on police activity, Police Chief Ray Austin presented members of the Ocean City Police Commission with an update on the 2026 spring Cruisin’ Ocean City event, which kicked off April 30 and continued through May 3.
He said enforcement statistics from the start of the event had been incorporated into April’s police activity report, which saw a notable uptick in calls for service.
“I would attribute a lot of this to spring Cruisin’,” he said.
From April 2025 to April 2026, total calls for service increased from 2,845 to 3,827. Taking away business and residential property checks, those numbers dropped to 2,082 calls last April and 2,568 calls this April.
In the top 25 calls for service, Austin said traffic stops increased from 523 to 980, disorderly calls increased from 49 to 60, BOLO (be on the lookout) increased from 19 to 32, and ordinance violations dropped from 27 to eight. That decrease, he said, likely resulted from a change in enforcement tied to spring Cruisin’.
“The other thing I will tell you is we were doing a lot of work on private parking lots there during Cruisin’ …,” he told the commission. “We were on the private parking lots as opposed to being out on public property, basically, where we were doing a lot of those city ordinance violations.”
Such gatherings are a magnet for criminals.
The Cruisers being thousands and thousands of spectators to Ocean City twice a year. The owners of this beautiful cars and trucks are a different class of people than the spectators. Lots of spectators only dream of having a Hot Rod while spending there money on beer. Very easy to see, more people more crime.