State and local officials in Ocean City held a press conference on Thursday afternoon on the boardwalk to reassure the public that the popular vacation spot is as safe as it ever has been.
“The incidents this Memorial Day weekend were unacceptable,” Mayor Jay Gillian said during a press conference Thursday. “Our police department was fully equipped and engaged.”
Incidents on boardwalks in Seaside Heights, Wildwood, and a stabbing on the Ocean City boardwalk over the holiday weekend - the traditional start to the summer vacation season - led to a chaotic scene along the Jersey Shore.
No one has been arrested in the incident in Ocean City, where a 15-year-old was stabbed near 10th Street on the boardwalk, Ocean City Police Chief Bill Campbell said.
He said the fight on the boardwalk was a coordinated incident where kids from Atlantic City, Pleasantville and Mays Landing planned to meet in Ocean City.
“This was a targeted engagement between these juveniles,” Campbell said. “We believe this fight was planned to take place on the boardwalk.”
Campbell said that once the group was removed from the boardwalk, things returned to normal within 60 to 90 minutes. “No outside vacationers or residents of Ocean City were targeted,” Campbell said.
Gillian said police issued over 1,300 curbside warnings and took 23 juveniles into custody, and issued station house adjustments, mostly for shoplifting and fights.
Campbell said seven juveniles in a fight were issued station house adjustments, which are community service alternatives to criminal violations.
Gillian added that he was on the boardwalk later in the weekend and witnessed the public behaving well and said the police department responded appropriately. He highlighted Ocean City’s curfews and restrictions on backpacks on the boardwalk as measures the city has taken to tamp down unruly episodes.
“We take public safety very, very seriously,” the mayor said while giving credit to the Ocean City Police Department for responding to the incident last weekend and hailing the city’s large seasonal police force.
“We’re not blaming anybody for what happened here,” Gillian said. “We take responsibility for what happens here in Ocean City. It’s up to all of us to make sure that our kids and everyone that we come in contact with be educated on how important it is to be accountable and be accountable.”
State Rep. Antwan McClellan, R-1st Dist., said he promised to continue offering legislation at the state level to provide law enforcement more tools to engage with juveniles along the shore.
“We’re going to continue to fight as a legislature to make sure this doesn’t continue to happen,” McClellan said at the press conference. He said that legislation he cosponsored to give police more tools to enforce laws in shore towns was conditionally vetoed by Gov. Phil Murphy.
The biggest issues Campbell said the Ocean City Police department faces with teens on the boardwalk is enforcing underage drinking and cannabis use.
McClellan claimed that police were handcuffed in how they could enforce laws. Campbell said officers can talk to teens but can only issue warnings for underage substance use.
Ocean City wasn’t the only place along the Jersey Shore that struggled with unruly crowds and frightening incidents. Wildwood closed the boardwalk and declared a state of emergency due to what officials there called “civil unrest.”
In Seaside Heights in Ocean County, a false alarm call for shots fired on Saturday night sent crowds stampeding as police searched for a potential shooter.
After the holiday weekend, Gov. Murphy said that the opening to the summer season at the Jersey Shore went well except for a few incidents.
“On the one hand, you’re taking anything like this deadly seriously,” Murphy said during his call-in television show on News 12 New Jersey. “We always have, and we always will.”
But the governor also pushed back on the characterization that the shore witnessed a chaotic weekend.
“The Shore did not have a chaotic weekend,” the governor said. “There were three very serious incidents. But this was overwhelmingly a huge Memorial Day.”
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Matthew Enuco may be reached at Menuco@njadvancemedia.com. Follow Matt on X
