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DECEMBER 24, 2021
SERVING NORTHERN WORCESTER COUNTY
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Council balks at demand by body cam rep
He wants approval before City Hall can review contract
By Mallory Panhuska Staff Writer
A
s the sun set earlier this week on the shortest day of the year, a woman walked deliberately around the side of the shuttered Phillips Crab House property on 21st Street, shooting photos with a small digital camera. She looked up at one point, a touch of melancholy in her eyes, and simply said, “Isn’t it sad?”
Lines form outside the late 1950s version of the Crab House. The woman was undoubtedly one of the thousands, possibly millions, who heard the big news that broke a day earlier: Phillips’ flagship Crab House in Ocean City had been listed for sale and was closing
its doors for good. “It’s the end of an era,” said retired Court of Appeals Judge Dale Cathell, the Ocean Pines author of “Empires of the Crab,” a 2004 homSee THE PHILLIPS Page 4
By Greg Wehner Staff Writer (Dec. 24, 2021) Ocean City Council members were asked on Monday to approve a $2.5 million deal by Dec. 31 to outfit the resort’s police force with body cameras, but with no contract put before them to read, the council is not likely to approve anything by the end of the year. State legislators passed the “Maryland Police Accountability Act” in 2021, which requires all police officers in the ‘We haven’t seen a contract. I can’t state to be equipped with vote on a contract body cameras I haven’t seen.’ by 2025. Councilman After a John Gehrig string of incidents in the resort over the past couple of years, including this past June when one black man was tased on the Boardwalk by officers despite appearing to be taking off his backpack, and another where an officer rammed his knee into the chest of another black man, Mayor Rick Meehan and Police Chief Ross Buzzuro have pushed to get the cameras in place well before the deadline. The department is expected to have body cameras on all 116 of its full-time officers as well as seasonal officers and public safety aids by next summer. For the past three months, Buzzuro and his department have tested cameras from three different vendors, and on Monday, he was ready to present the council with a contract for approval. But though the offer was presented, an actual contract was not. “Of the three vendors, one stood out and that was Axon,” the chief said, noting that nearly all law enforcement See CAMERA Page 8
