Forces Name ‘Top Cops’
The East Hampton Village and Town and Sag Harbor Police Departments named their “top cops” this week, in preparation for an annual Southampton Kiwanis Club event in Riverhead Friday honoring the finest of the finest across the East End.
Detectives Steven Sheades and Bryan Eldridge are East Hampton Village Department co-honorees. They ran an investigation that took several months and resulted in the arrest of a Turkish couple charged with making false threats against the Jewish Center of the Hamptons on Woods Lane.
East Hampton Town tapped Officer Arthur Scalzo as its top cop, with Chief Michael D. Sarlo citing two events in the past year that he said exemplified determination and intuitive skills.
Sag Harbor named Officer Nick Samot tops on its force “due to his overall performance during the year,” Sag Harbor Village Police Chief Tom Fabiano said Tuesday. “He has a superb work ethic,” the chief said. Officer Samot is a member of the Emergency Services Team, a rapid-response team that confronts potential armed, violent situations across the East End.
The Jewish Center investigation led to the Department of Homeland Security’s stopping Asli Dincer, 44, and Melih Dincer, 30, at Kennedy Airport as they returned from a trip to Turkey last summer.
“It was a very involved case,” Chief Gerard Larsen said Tuesday.”We were able to determine, at the end of the day, that the threats were made up.”
The couple said they were trying to foil a radical Islamic plot. However, the investigation alleged that they were trying to set up several fellow immigrants, with whom they had had a falling out.
Detective Sheades, a native of East Hampton, is 34. Detective Eldridge, originally from Northport, is 36. They frequently work as a team and agreed that the aid of outside police organizations was instrumental in breaking the case. Involved were the New York State Joint Terrorist Task Force, the Suffolk County Police Intelligence Unit, United States Customs, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The detectives added that John O’Grady and Bill Behrn of the Suffolk Intelligence Unit were particularly helpful in following the cyber trail that led to the Dincers.
“What was important, in the end, was being able to tell the center that they were safe,” Detective Sheades said. The Dincers are being held in Suffolk County jail in Riverside. Bail was set at $50,000 each, but it appears that the Department of Homeland Security has a hold on them. They are due back in East Hampton Town Justice Court on Feb. 11.
The first example of Officer Scalzo’s praised work given by Chief Sarlo involved the traffic stop of a truck at 2 a.m. on March 6 on Further Lane. The officer thought that the two men in the truck, Freddie Parker and William Lagarenne, were behaving suspiciously. He found that the truck lacked proper paperwork and then discovered $26,000 worth of copper gutters in the back of the vehicle. The investigation showed they had been stripped off an Oceanview Lane house in Amagansett’s Devon Colony.
Both men eventually pleaded guilty to misdemeanors. Mr. Lagarenne is serving a one-year sentence in county jail. Mr. Parker served his time, and has been released.
The second example cited happened on Nov. 5. Officer Scalzo was the first to arrive at a Clearwater Beach residence in Springs, where a 26-year-old male had overdosed on heroin. Officer Scalzo administered Narcan, a brand of naloxone which reverses toxic effects on the central nervous system. Officers had been taught how to administer Narcan earlier in the year. Officer Scalzo is so far the only member of the force to have applied the drug in the field, saving a life, Chief Sarlo said.
Officer Scalzo is an eight-year veteran of the force and an Army National Guard veteran who served two tours of active duty as an intelligence officer in Iraq.