Also on the beach and boardwalk at Ocean City, Md., where many of the Free State’s summertime pranks get played out every year, much to the dismay of law enforcement officials charged with responsibility for maintaining order.

But not far from Ocean City in the Eastern Shore City of Salisbury Wednesday night, police answered what has to rank among the strangest breaking and entering calls ever reported, not just in Maryland but anywhere.

The cops were called, shortly after 10 p.m., to deal with a burglary in progress. But not just any burglary.

A Salisbury homeowner called to say a man was beating on his front door, and while the homeowner hid upstairs and called police, the man gained entry by breaking open the door and proceeded to strip down to his underwear, whereupon he baked a chicken pot pie he found in the victim’s kitchen.

As reported by the Salisbury Daily Times  (click here to read the full story)  the man then retreated to the living room, where he was found by sheriff’s deputies shortly thereafter licking a remote control device.

When the deputies attempted to handcuff the man — who was identified as Russell E. Neff, 22 — he struggled with the officers, police say, and was charged with resisting arrest, as well as first-degree burglary and malicious destruction of property.

Following an initial appearance before a District Court commissioner, he is being held at the Wicomico County Detention Center in lieu of $250,000 bond.

He is also charged with stealing the pot pie.
 
— Alan Z. Forman
 
alforman@voiceofbaltimore.org