Encounters with Ocean City Police: Skipping Swim Practice

My senior year, I swam for the Ocean City Hawks. In my earlier years, though, I found my lifestyle a bit more important than participating on a swim team. I regret that sometimes now that I’m in my 50s, but I can’t go back and change anything.

Coach used to stop me in the hall and get upset that I wasn’t on the team. I had tried out my freshman year and was moved from the freshman lane to the faster junior-senior lane. I was good. I was good.

I had started swimming very young, before moving from Johnstown. I remember one meet where I believe I swam the 100-meter freestyle. The bell rang, I jumped, and I swam the best I could. When I hit the wall to finish, the others were either halfway through the last lap or just pushing off the wall at the other end. My grandparents took us out to dinner that night.

By my senior year, I was back on a team, but I was still the pot-smoking, acid-taking teenager I had been. Being able to swim and showing up for practice were apparently two different things.

Skipping Practice

The group I’ve talked about in other stories had a house on 14th Street. Three stories, one block off the beach. Of course, I cut practice one day and headed over to smoke.

I had my white OC Swimming sweatshirt on with white pants. Total undercover “jock.”

While we sat, talked, and did what we did, there was a knock at the door. Noah, a friend who lived on the third floor, answered it. Standing outside was a detective, the brother of Joe, the owner of Voltaco’s.

We had paraphernalia out on the coffee table. The detective asked if he could come in, and I was yelling for Noah not to let him. He didn’t have a warrant.

Noah let him in anyway.

The detective saw the paraphernalia, and we ended up at the station. I was a minor, so they called my mom.

When she arrived, she was angry, looking at me and telling me how much trouble I was in. She put on an entire show for the cops. Looks like those drama classes at the University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown did some good.

She kept scolding me as we left. In the car, she asked what had happened. I explained that Noah had let the detective into the house even though I had told him not to.

We went home, had dinner, put on Star Trek, and smoked a joint. Of course, Mags had to sit on my lap for the entire show.

The Fishing Ticket

On another occasion, I was fishing with Keith when an officer stopped us. We didn’t have our fishing licenses with us, and we were ticketed.

Keith did the smart thing and went to court to fight his ticket. I was impressed with how he handled it. He asked the officer whether his pole had been in the water when the ticket was issued. The officer said it hadn’t. The judge threw it out because, at that moment, Keith wasn’t fishing.

Me, being as stupid as I was, ignored the entire thing. I had some drug-induced fantasy that one of my friends on the force had taken care of it for me.

Little did I know.

I’ll never forget what happened next. I was walking to meet Keith with four half-smoked joints. Roaches, really. I saw a cop car go by, and the officer was looking at me. Then another went by. And another.

The next thing I knew, three officers were coming toward me.

They asked if I was Brody Wright. I acknowledged that I was. One said they had a warrant for my arrest and asked if I knew why.

I did. The fishing ticket.

Believe it or not, they all started laughing.

One of the officers was new to the force and had been in my graduating class. They cuffed me and started searching me. That was when they found the four roaches.

Man, that made them happy.

I also had a pager on me. Four half-smoked joints and a pager apparently gave them some ideas about what I was doing. I found that out while sitting in my cell.

My pager went off, and an officer called the number. They were close enough to the holding cell that I could hear the conversation. He pretended to be me and asked whether my friend needed anything.

My friend immediately knew it wasn’t me. We talked about it after I was released, and the gist was that the officer kept pressing him about what he wanted. My friend was calling because the surf was going off and wanted to know if we were going out. The officer said he couldn’t go but had some good stuff if my friend needed anything.

My friend hung up.

Now, I have to admit, I was a bit upset about missing some tasty waves. But I was also laughing to myself. I yelled from the cell, making a joke about selling roaches for a quarter. Come on, man. Get real.

After a few hours, John Tacarinno, Joe’s brother, came down to the cell and asked what the fuck I had done. I explained the fishing ticket and the roaches they had found.

He called his brother, who came over and bailed me out. I specifically remember Joe telling the clerk that they had to get me back to work.

And that’s what I did. I went back to work.

Of course, I still had to stand in front of Judge Russell. He had a reputation for being a huge asshole, so I went in thinking I was going to the county prison.

Here’s where my memory gets fuzzy. I remember going to court twice, once for the charge and another time for a drug test. Passing that test wasn’t going to happen.

I remember telling Judge Russell that I wasn’t going to stop smoking pot and wouldn’t pass the test. I was sure he would give me some number of months in county. Instead, I got a few thousand in fines and lost my driving privileges for six months.

Most people would hate that outcome. I was floating on air. As far as I was concerned, it was the best result I could have gotten.

A Knock on Brigantine Drive

I’ve written another article about close calls with cops, but they were outside Ocean City. All of these encounter happened in the city, and this one specifically at my home on Brigantine Drive, a few months after Kendra and I started dating.

I was having a house party. One of my friends, whom I’ll call Daniel Jones, was there with his wife. Daniel supplied me with ounces from Philly to sell, and his wife had a quarter pound of weed with her that night.

When Kendra found out, she became anxious. She had never seen that much devil’s lettuce in her life.

There were about 10 to 12 people in the house, all smoking pot, when someone knocked at the door. I could see flashlights outside and cop cars parked a few feet away.

I went to the door. They knocked again, identified themselves as Ocean City Police, and told me to open up.

So I did. Just a crack. I kept my foot at the bottom of the door so they couldn’t push it open.

I asked if I could help them. An officer said they had received a noise complaint. Then he asked if they could come in.

I said no.

He said he could smell marijuana coming out of the house, reasonable cause. I asked whether they had a warrant. He said they didn’t, and I told him they couldn’t come in.

Meanwhile, cops were circling the house and shining flashlights onto the back porch. Red and blue lights were going, and radios were blasting. The response made it look as if we were some terror group plotting to blow up downtown Ocean City. It was crazy.

By then, nothing was out in the open. Kendra was in my bedroom, fucking terrified. She came from a tiny town in western New York and had never been in a situation like this.

After a little more back-and-forth, the officers left. They didn’t come in, and they didn’t force the door. As I saw it, they respected our rights and the Fourth Amendment.

This time, nobody let them in.