Ocean City PD fights back against H2Oi 2020 with traffic reroutes, skunk shot, mobile camera, & arrests

…not to mention ticketing drivers and impounds

H2Oi 2020 is turning out to be one of the largest H2oi’s in history, bringing thousands of attendees and their cars to the Maryland strip. In response, Ocean City police put into action strategies specifically planned months before to combat the enormous crowds and traffic this weekend is bringing.

Here’s a handful of some larger strategies OCPD deployed earlier yesterday (Sept. 25,2020) that we’ll see used throughout the weekend.

A larger police force presence

Campos Media captured a small fight that broke out on one busy intersection. As you can see in the video, several police departments from around Worcester County are collaborating to keep traffic flowing, control crowds, make arrests, and to keep heated encounters from boiling over.

Here’s a compilation that should give you an idea how much work OCPD put in.

Pepper Spray, Skunk shot, or a combo of the both to control crowds

OCPD has a duty to keep traffic flowing on the streets and the sidewalks. This means, like previous years, they don’t encourage loitering. It looks like this year not only are they using pepper spray, but skunk shot too.

There were reports of a human gas-like smell being sprayed by police consistent with skunk shot, a noxious repellant often used to repel cats, dogs, and other animals.

Check out some videos of police spraying pepper spray or skunks hot below.

Rerouting traffic

An OCPD rep mentioned there’d be traffic re-routing in a report to a Maryland news outlet and we saw that play out today. To keep Ocean City streets as clear as possible and to prevent traffic build-up on “The Coastal Highway” OCPD re-routed cares heading south back onto the 90 (A.K.A. The Ocean City Expressway) out of the city.

Here’s a video shared and posted by Nick Chandler warning people.

This put you on one of several loops, forcing you to re-route and re-enter Ocean City through the 54 or to the 26. If you’re lucky, you might loop down and re-enter through Ocean Gateway on the 50.

And it sounds like police had checkpoints at one or several entries into the city, doling out fines, impound orders, or both.

A license-plate reader or surveillance camera mounted in this truck bed

It’s not clear what the purpose of this bed-mounted camera is, but most think it’s to read license plates, weeding out any potential drivers with more than traffic violations on their record (they’re looking for felons.)

Do you have any idea what this camera is for? Let me know in the comments below.

Might as well mention Covid-19

After a five-minute google, it looks like Maryland is faring a little better than other densely populated states. There is a statewide mask mandate in certain conditions where you can’t socially distance. Looking at a lot of the crowds at H2Oi, not a mask is in sight.

But hey, these kids are mostly young. Hopefully, no major outbreaks come from H2Oi 2020, but a large part of me thinks that’s not statistically possible.