Gun Drama, Suicide Darken The Weekend

It was an unusually tense weekend for East Hampton police. In a span of less than two days, they were faced with a daylight suicide on Amagansett's Main Street and embroiled in a three-hour standoff in Wainscott with a distraught, shotgun-wielding man.

The Wainscott incident, which began with a domestic dispute on Bathgate Road in the pre-dawn hours of Sunday, eventually involved 25 police personnel and even a robot.

Town police received a 911 call at 5:21 a.m. from Mariam Jacobs, who told them she had just fled her house with her 11-year-old daughter. Her husband had returned home drunk, she said, and after a verbal confrontation had smashed the glass on his gun case, pulled out a shotgun, and begun waving it around, threatening to shoot up the house.

She told police he had turned the weapon on himself at one point, but did not pull the trigger.

Neighbors Evacuated

With town officers tied up at an accident in Springs, East Hampton Village police were the first to arrive on the scene. After talking with Mrs. Jacobs, they learned that her husband, Donald Jacobs, a welder, had numerous other firearms - 10 in all, including an AK-47 assault rifle - in the house as well.

Armed officers surrounded the house, while others roused and evacuated neighbors on Bathgate and East Gate Roads. Six houses in all were evacuated.

"I thought the house was on fire," said Carlos Basaldua of East Gate Road as he watched police hurrying back and forth with shotguns and radios.

With no lights on inside the house, police could not see Mr. Jacobs moving about, and were unsure of his condition or intent.

Hostage Negotiators

A series of calls to the house by village officers and, later, town police went unanswered.

"I spent the better part of an hour trying to get in touch with him," said Capt. Todd Sarris of the town police, both by telephone from a police van and using a bullhorn.

The decision was made to call in the County Police Department's emergency services unit and its hostage negotiation team. Several members of the emergency squad flew in by helicopter and were met at the East Hampton Airport. Others arrived shortly after, clad in bulletproof vests and helmets, and took over what police called the "inner perimeter."

By 7:30 a.m., there were 25 police personnel on the scene. Members of the Bridgehampton Fire Department stood by with an ambulance.

Robot Sent In

An hour passed with still no indication of activity inside the house. After more fruitless attempts to reach Mr. Jacobs, the team decided to send in the emergency service unit's robot, a six-wheeled apparatus armed with a video camera, water cannon, shotgun, and loudspeaker.

The robot was sent by remote control to the house to get a look inside the windows.

"Based on what we know now, he had been sleeping or unconscious for most of the time," said Captain Sarris.

Mr. Jacobs, 40, eventually gave up without incident, emerging from a side door at 8:54 a.m. Police held off on charging him, opting to send him for a psychiatric evaluation at Stony Brook University Medical Center first.

That test did not indicate Mr. Jacobs was a threat to himself or others, Captain Sarris said.

"I think the situation was a resultof him being intoxicated, not being suicidal," he said. He added that all the guns in the house appeared to be legal.

Mr. Jacobs was eventually charged with second-degree harassment, a violation, and released on $1,000 bail. His wife was granted an order of protection against him.

Mr. Basaldua, the neighbor, said he knew Mr. Jacobs "only in passing, as a neighbor, but the boy I know." The couple's son had been staying with a friend and was not in the house during the dispute.

A Pistol Shot

Just two days earlier police had to deal with a suicide in broad daylight.

On Friday, just after 1:20 p.m., two town officers on highway patrol were conducting a speed check by the Amagansett School. After clocking a maroon Ford van at 42 miles per hour through the school zone, one of the officers, Thomas Grenci, directed the vehicle to pull over.

The driver complied, but as Officer Grenci approached the car on foot, he heard a loud noise.

"As he's getting closer to the car, he hears a BAM!," recounted Captain Sarris. "At first he thought he had slammed it into park."

But the sound turned out to be a blast from a pistol. When Mr. Grenci and the other officer, Jim Jahoda, peered into the car, the driver, 27-year-old John Wentzell of Charlotte, N.C., was slumped back in the driver's seat with a fatal wound to the head from a Glock semi-automatic.

School In Session

After breaking a window to get into the locked van, the two officers checked the man for vital signs. There were none. More police arrived, and covered the van's windows with yellow blankets. Across the street, classes were in session at the Amagansett School.

The scene remained taped off for more than three hours while police awaited the arrival of the Suffolk County Medical Examiner.

Trying to establish a motive for the suicide, police learned through their own interviews and those conducted by Charlotte police that Mr. Wentzell had been having problems with his girlfriend.

Girlfriend Problems

The two had recently bought a house together in Charlotte, said Captain Sarris, but their relationship appeared to be "dissolving."

"At some point he told her there's too much pressure, he had to get away," Captain Sarris said.

Mr. Wentzell left North Carolina on Sept. 24 to visit his mother in Massachusetts, spent a few days there, apparently returned to North Carolina, and then went back again to Massachusetts.

He was in touch with his girlfriend, whom police did not identify, during this time. At one point, Captain Sarris said, Mr. Wentzell left a message on her answering machine: "I have some bad news. I can't live like this anymore."

He had told his mother several days prior to the suicide that he was "going to see the water."

The Last Straw?

Police do not know when he arrived in East Hampton nor how long he had been here.

Mr. Wentzell's license had been suspended in New York State. "With all these troubles he had, we feel getting pulled over might have been the final straw," Captain Sarris said, stressing that the investigation was continuing. Among other things, police are tracing the origin of the semi-automatic handgun.

In checking the rented van, police noticed a sizable dent in the front fender, which appeared to have been newly made.