Ocean City Police Officer Ryan Flanagan was sued for excessive force and false arrest after a 2012 incident in which he knocked a man unconscious without cause. The victim, Brenden Thomas, was leaving a nightclub when Flanagan confronted and assaulted him, then arrested him on disorderly conduct charges that were later dropped. Thomas filed a civil rights lawsuit, and in 2015 a federal jury found that Flanagan had violated Thomas’s constitutional rights. The jury awarded Thomas $45,000 in damages, confirming that Flanagan used excessive force.