College Takeover falls short of online buzz

Ocean City manned its Boardwalk with extra security Saturday, but its forces were greatly outnumbered by hordes of new high school graduates and youth soccer players sprawling on the beach.

In anticipation of thousands of college students arriving in town for College Takeover, a beach weekend event which spread through Facebook and Twitter, Ocean City put 200 of its full-time and seasonal staff out on the street, as well as officers from the Worcester County Sheriff's Office and the Maryland State Police, said Lindsay O'Neal, spokeswoman for Ocean City Police.

The town beefed up local law enforcement for this year's second annual College Takeover, after a similar event last year in Virginia Beach, Va., coincided with three shootings, a stabbing, several robberies, an assault and an argument in which two people were injured by a thrown bottle, according to a report by Norfolk television station WVEC.

But by Saturday afternoon, officials had not reported anything out of the ordinary.

Friday night saw incidents of drunk and disorderly conduct, a typical occurrence for a June weekend, O'Neal said.

"It's definitely worth it to beef up our patrols," she said. "It's certainly better to be prepared if things do go wrong."

A scroll through a Twitter feed and a stroll down the Boardwalk gave two opposing pictures of College Takeover. High school seniors, who arrived for their annual beach week, dominated the street with a mix of families and the occasional Ocean City biker.

Chris Coverdale and Alvaro Merlo, two college juniors from Delaware, relaxed on a bench near Ripley's Believe or Not. The two had not even heard of the initiative and instead were there celebrating Merlo's birthday.

"I don't see a whole lot of college kids," Coverdale said. "It seems like the same amount of people; it's not like a mass crowd."

Inside the Boardwalk shops, owners said they had seen mostly high school students throughout the weekend. Billy Suchting, general manager for the Shoreside Shops, saw the usual mixed crowd in town but nothing unusual. He added there could be more college students on their way later that night.

"The media blew everything up," he said. "A lot of people were freaked out."

Tae Sweizy, the 23-year-old promoter at PartyHeadz D.C., which promoted the event, was not disappointed with the turnout that afternoon and expected more to come at night. Both Sweizy and Dreyoung Shotta, PartyHeadz D.C. president, also expressed appreciation for the increased security.

"The security helped us out a lot," Shotta said. "The police is good for us because we don't want no violence."

The Virginia Beach takeover was organized by a different promoter, Sweizy said. He hopes to grow the Ocean City takeover next year and hold official events at local clubs such as H2O Nite Club and Seacrets.

"Next year, I want it to be global," he said. "I want people to bring passports to get here."

• Brian Shane contributed to this report

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