Police & Courts

The Eastville Community Historical Society in Sag Harbor is reeling over the vandalism of gravestones in the St. David A.M.E. Zion Cemetery on Eastville Avenue. The damage was discovered on Tuesday as members of the society were outdoors on a nice day and happened to stop by for a visit.

A resident of Devon Road in Beach Hampton saw someone "admiring the particular siding of a residence and taking a photograph of it," and notified police.

"We need a more diverse police force," Sandra Dunn of East Hampton Town's Police Reform and Reinvention Committee told the town board on Tuesday. Just four of 65 officers are Latino, she said, and the department has just one African-American member, a detective. Nine officers are women.

On Monday afternoon, just as the Springs School was dismissing students, there was a robbery in the vicinity. East Hampton Town police have reported only that a white man, possibly armed, entered the victim's vehicle and "forcibly" stole money.

East Hampton Town police flagged down a 2018 Jeep involved minutes before in a minor hit-and-run accident near Hampton Street in Sag Harbor.

The East Hampton Town Police Department has announced that school crossing guard positions are available.

It seemed suspicious to find a pickup truck and van parked in her Apaquogue Road driveway, a homeowner told police on Friday. She confronted the drivers, who told her they were at the wrong house and were leaving.

Village police said the arrest followed a months-long investigation. The defendant turned himself in on Wednesday.

Before moving ahead with its plan to require beachgoers to use a smartphone app to pay for daily parking at village beaches, the East Hampton Village Board has eliminated the Main Beach office staff that managed parking payments and performed other administrative duties.

Sag Harbor police were busy last week with traffic arrests and a few more serious offenses.

A man called police on Saturday night from the public restrooms on Bay Street in Sag Harbor, saying he was locked inside. Police found him in the women's room (which was not locked) and asked what he was doing there.

A New York State Department of Transportation snow plow on the morning of Feb. 16, was turning right from Route 114, a state road, onto Stephen Hand's Path when it sideswiped Johnny Haider's Ford and Sean Barber's Toyota.

Severe weather caused many a slip-and-slide on local roads last week, though no injuries were reported.

A driver was arrested last week on a charge of aggravated unlicensed driving after hitting a tree on private property at the intersection of Wainscott Main Street and Beach Lane.

An Oakview Highway woman told police that someone had driven across her lawn overnight on Saturday. Her split-rail fence was destroyed and an officer also noted a broken post, umbrella stand, and spotlight, plus tire marks.

Policing during Covid comes with a world of unprecedented stress, challenges that are exponentially greater, and the added worry of bringing the virus home to family members. "If you saw it in a movie or book you wouldn't believe it," one South Fork chief said.

The wintry weather saw quieter roads last week and just one arrest, in East Hampton Village.

Sag Harbor Village police believe it was the same miscreant who went on a spree on the morning of Feb. 3, rummaging through, but not taking anything from, a vehicle on Beach Avenue, then hitting three more cars on Walker Avenue.

Several cars skidded across the double lines and into snowbanks. Three such accidents happened on Feb. 1.

The East Hampton Fire Department put recent ice rescue training into action on Monday when a dog fell through the ice at Hook Pond.

The witness who called police on Dec. 17 thought that the driver of a red pickup truck would do the same. Instead, after hitting a utility pole on Route 114, the driver fled, leaving wires strewn across the road. Police looked but did not find the truck. PSEG repaired the broken pole. 

Darius Dorph-Lowrie, 21, was charged with criminal contempt Saturday morning after Sag Harbor police said the village resident had ignored an active order of protection against him.

Icy roads made for treacherous conditions on Northwest Landing Road, East Hampton, on Jan. 26 at 10:15 a.m., and again on Monday morning at the intersection of Springs-Fireplace Road and Abraham's Path in East Hampton. Neither driver was injured.

New York State troopers charged an East Hampton man on Jan. 5 with sex abuse involving an 11-year-old child, a first-degree Class B felony punishable by up to 25 years in prison.

A Medford woman who drew the attention of Sag Harbor police at 2 a.m. on Jan. 25 by stopping for a Main Street stop sign 20 feet away from the sign and then driving through it, was charged later that morning with driving while intoxicated.

A 20-year-old Wainscott man was arrested at his home on the evening of Jan. 19 and charged with criminal mischief, intent to damage property.

The East Hampton Town Police Department honored 17 of its own last week for "outstanding and dedicated acts of professional policing" in the year 2020.

After two seal-related calls last week, two more calls on Friday afternoon brought officers to Georgica Beach in search of a stranded seal pup that people were reported to be "harassing."

A contractor hired for an East Hampton Town public works project in 2017 has pleaded guilty to underpaying his employees and falsifying payroll records, Suffolk County District Attorney Timothy D. Sini announced Friday.

Details continued to emerge this week about the Amagansett accident that claimed the life of Yuris Murillo Cruz, 36. She died on Jan. 13 at Stony Brook University Hospital, having been flown there by a county medevac helicopter along with her 1-year-old son, Josue Gael, and her daughter, Michelle, 4, both of whom were taken to the pediatric intensive care unit.