Police & Courts

A driver whose truck rear-ended a car in front of him told police he had been distracted by his dog and didn't notice that the car was braking.

Police at first thought that the water reported to be flowing onto Church Street last Thursday afternoon came from a water main break, but found upon arriving at the scene that it was being pumped from a nearby swimming pool, a violation of the village code.

As winds out of the northwest gusted at near 40 miles per hour early Saturday, it didn’t take long for the embers from a fire that began around 9:30 a.m. in a Manorville backyard, “following an attempt to make s’mores,” to ignite multiple brush fires that would grow to burn 600 acres in the Westhampton pine barrens. Suffolk County police arson detectives reached the conclusion after first reviewing 911 call from the hours leading up to the incident.

Low-flying drones were reported flying over Deep Hollow Ranch on the evening of March 3. Police saw their lights blinking red and white, but no action was taken. 

East Hampton Town police made fewer overall arrests last year, but more arrests for driving while intoxicated — another year that has led Chief Michael Sarlo to say that “we live in an extremely safe community.” 

A fire on Park Street in East Hampton early Saturday afternoon left extensive damage to a house and killed the family dog, East Hampton Fire Chief Duane Forrester said Monday. 

Brush fires in the Pine Barrens around Westhampton Beach that burned more than 600 acres were likely sparked by a fire that spread from a house in Manorville where people were making s'mores on Saturday afternoon, Suffolk County police said. Some 90 agencies responded, including fire departments from the South Fork.

A Sag Harbor man was riding a motorcycle on Route 27 near East Lake Drive in Montauk on the evening of Feb. 26 when, he told East Hampton Town police, a deer ran out into the road.

East Hampton Village is exploring creating its own justice court that could be up and running at the Emergency Services Building on Cedar Street by next January.

The East Hampton Town Police Department’s planning for security at the Montauk Friends of Erin St. Patrick’s Day Parade, to be held on March 30, begins early in the new year and continues until a week before the parade. But after the attack on Bourbon Street in New Orleans on New Year’s Day that killed 14 people, there is an even greater focus on safety this year.

Warning that it could be a false alarm, a police dispatcher alerted officers on the evening of Feb. 25 that a caller had reported “a man with a possible bomb attached to his chest” on Main Street. Police found no such man nor any witnesses to the person described.

Police spotted a headlight out on a Chevy van, pulled the driver over, and said they found cocaine and fentanyl in the vehicle.

On Feb. 19, a Stuart’s Lane, East Hampton, woman reported two vehicles circling her neighborhood. Police found one vehicle parked on the shoulder. The driver explained that she was using the quiet street to teach her mother how to drive. The other vehicle was being used to practice parallel parking.

The clothing shop LoveShackFancy on Madison Street in Sag Harbor reported two separate thefts over the weekend. An arrest was made Thursday afternoon in connection with one of them.

A house under construction in Wainscott experienced heavy damage after a fire tore through it Friday morning. 

As many as 40 burglar alarms were triggered across both residential and commercial properties in East Hampton Town last week, in some places more than once in 24 hours.

A driver claimed that icy roads led to a crash, but police said he had failed a roadside sobriety test. He sustained a head injury with minor bleeding, they said, while his passenger was found to be semiconscious.

Police responded to a drunken brawl on Rolling Woods Court in Wainscott late last Thursday night. A fight between two men had spilled over into a driveway. One of the two, bleeding from a punch in the face, pushed the other to the ground, "scratching his rib cage," according to the report.

The East Hampton Village Board targeted false fire-alarm scofflaws at a work session last week, raising the penalty for causing firefighters or village police to mobilize needlessly.

The Southampton Town Kiwanis Club honored police officers from both East Hampton Town and Village at an awards dinner on Jan. 31, with Nicole Fierro winning Officer of the Year for the town.

Two drivers lost control on the ice, while an East Hampton man was taken to the hospital after his sedan was rear-ended by a van.

A Sag Harbor woman reported a stranger in her backyard early Sunday morning. Police concluded that undisturbed snow on the ground suggested that nobody had entered her property. She then told the officer, “Maybe I didn’t see anyone, I just thought I did.” 

A Sag Harbor woman reported a scam that defrauded her of more than $200,000 to Sag Harbor Village police — and ultimately the Federal Bureau of Investigation — after a previously unknown individual contacted her on Instagram.

“The area is kind of like a tinder box, to a degree, and it wouldn’t take much to set off a fire,” East Hampton Fire Chief Duane Forrester said after a recent meeting with several town officials at the Northwest Woods Trail to discuss a plan for fire safety in the area.

In the blotter this week a Springs resident told police back on Dec. 5 that she’d received a video of herself, accompanied by a threat that the video would be shared unless she sent $500 to its unknown sender. The woman did not send money.

Police made one felony-level arrest on a charge of aggravated drunken driving early on Monday morning, and another man was charged with violating an order of protection.

When a box with two vacuum-sealed packages of marijuana arrived at the doorstep of an Osborne Lane man, he reported it to police.

The East Hampton Town Police Department announced this week that it is now accepting applications for its 2025 Citizens Academy, which is intended to give residents insight into how local police departments operate.

On Sunday evening, the assistant manager of Sportime told police he’d seen two drunken men harassing the snack stand attendant and asked them to leave, which they did, briefly, but then ran back in and punched him.

Southampton Town police charged a Bay Shore woman with two felonies last Thursday, saying, first, that she’d left the scene of an accident on Sagg Main Street in Sagaponack, and second, after being located, was discovered to be in possession of “a “quantity of illegal drugs and paraphernalia.”