On the night of Dec. 5, a homeless 67-year-old man in a wheelchair donned a Santa hat and tried to get into the Point Bar and Grill in Montauk. According to East Hampton Town police, he was refused service after he “created a disturbance” and was “very intoxicated.”
He was said to have left his wheelchair at one point, but was later found in it, out in front of the Shagwong, reportedly “belligerent and uncooperative.” Just before 11 p.m., after he asked for a ride to the train station, officers loaded him and the wheelchair into a squad car. They dropped him off there, but he evidently never got on the train. Instead, he spent the night sleeping outside.
In the morning, he was found lying on the ground near 21 Fort Pond Road, with blankets and the wheelchair nearby. For the second time in two days police escorted him to the train station and advised him of when the next train would arrive.
Not long after, however, he was spotted on the side of Edgemere Road, where he told an officer he was trying to get out of town. This time, police hailed a commuter bus, and he got on it.