At least 18 arrested during chaotic spring break weekend on Tybee Island
At least 18 people were arrested on Tybee Island after tens of thousands of spring breakers flooded the small Georgia beach town for a weekend marred by shootings, fights and other chaos.
As many as 50,000 college students inundated the small barrier island last weekend for the annual Orange Crush Festival, stressing emergency services on the 3-square mile island with a population of about 3,000, officials told local outlets.
Videos of the wild weekend circulated on social media, showing intoxicated revelers dancing to blaring music in the streets and fighting.
In one particularly violent incident among the chaos, one person was wounded on Saturday night in a road-rage shooting on Highway 80 — the main highway on and off Tybee Island, according to the Chatham County Police Department.
Adam Bauer, 38, was arrested and charged with six counts of aggravated assault after allegedly shooting at another car near Fort Pulaski, police said.
One person was taken to an area hospital with non-life-threatening gunshot injuries while the five others who were in the car at the time avoided injury, cops said.
On Tuesday, Tybee Island Police announced that between Friday, April 21st and Sunday, April 23, they arrested 18 people and issued 37 traffic citations and 53 Code Enforcement violations.
“As a reminder, time and resources do not allow us to detail every call for service that TIPD responded to last week,” the department said in a statement. “We do hope, however, that the information provided will help to paint a better picture of the situations our team was dealing with on the ground.”
On Friday, police located a stolen vehicle parked at a local motel. The two occupants of the vehicle, who were staying at the motel, said they rented the car in Atlanta but “did not go through a regular rental company.”
The pair were arrested for theft by receiving. Before leaving the scene police noticed a “large bird in the room” as well, which was housed at the police department until it was turned over to a suspects’ family member, police said.
The weekend turned increasingly violent on Saturday and Sunday.
Just after midnight Saturday morning, police responded to a report of five gunshots fired from inside a vehicle. Police later stopped a vehicle matching the description but no firearm was found and occupants were let go.
About two hours later, police said they spotted a man walking around with a handgun hanging out of his pocket who began shouting profanities at police officers observing him in a crowded area of the island with lots of bystanders nearby.
He ignored officers’ commands to put the gun on the ground as they pointed their service weapons at him. The man continued to walk away and tried to ditch the gun underneath a car, police said. He kept walking away until he was tasered by police and placed in handcuffs.
Witnesses said the man was angry because his AR-style rifle was stolen from his vehicle. That gun and the handgun he tried to hide below the car were both recovered. He was charged with obstruction.
Later Saturday afternoon, police responded to hundreds of people “fleeing the beach and that there had possibly been shots fired.” It was later determined that no shots had been fired.
When responders attempted to help a woman who had fallen ill, they found themselves trapped by crowds of hundreds of people and were unable to aid the woman. One officer put the woman on his shoulders and single-handedly carried her away from the scene so she could get the care she needed, police said.
The same afternoon, a police stopped driver doing “burnouts” in the middle of a congested road. When officers asked for his ID, he suddenly accelerated and “intentionally slammed his car into other vehicles” nearly hitting multiple pedestrians.
He then crashed into a nearby gas station where police were able to arrest him. Two weapons and a bag of marijuana were found in the car and he was slapped with numerous charges, including reckless driving and possession of a firearm by a convicted felon.
On Saturday night, police ran towards a scene where they heard gunshots and bystanders screaming “He’s got a gun!” Police found the shooter around the corner with a handgun holster clipped to the front of his shorts. Drawing their service weapons, the officers ordered the man to show them his hands, to which he complied.
While police were still at that scene, more gunfire rang out from behind a motel located across the street.
On Sunday, police responded to a report of a fight. At the scene, police found a woman “badly beaten” and “noticeably bruised and swollen with a trickle of blood coming from her nose.” The woman told police she and her daughter had both been beaten and robbed. The incident is still under investigation, police said.
On Sunday evening, two women fighting were both placed under arrest.
Later that night, officers were approached by a man who claimed to have been robbed at gunpoint.
The victim said a group of four other males who had seen his firearm sticking out of his pocket approached him and pointed their own gun at him and took his weapon.
The victim then pointed the group out to officers, who began to walk over to make contact with the four. As they did so, one of the males, with a gun in his hand, ducked behind a vehicle.
Police drew their service weapons and ordered the man to drop his weapon, to which he eventually complied. Two of the men were arrested on gun and robbery charges.
Earlier in the week on Wednesday, a foot patrol officer spotted a man sitting with his pants around his ankles inside of a photo booth and a naked woman on her knees “performing oral sex on her companion.” Both were asked to put on their clothes and were arrested for disorderly conduct.
The Orange Crush Festival, which started in the late 1980s for HBCU students and alum, returned this year to Tybee Island, which was a whites-only beach until the mid-1960s, after two years in Jacksonville, Florida, according to Fox News.
The festival gained a reputation in the 1990s for being out-of-control, leading Savannah State University disassociated with the event in 1991 because of the high incidents of crime. The event returned to Tybee Island this past weekend for the first time since 2020.
Tybee Mayor Shirley Sessions said in a statement to Savannah Now that this year’s Orange Crush Festival “was admittedly too large and chaotic.”
“But at the end of the day, Tybee Island is fortunate that no lives were lost and no property destroyed,” Sessions said.
He said the city will work on solutions for better handling the event in the future.
