East Hampton
She'd heard knocking on her bedroom door around 4 a.m. on Saturday, a White Birch Drive woman told police, and she was afraid there was someone in the house. Police arrived to find a young man on the rear deck, who stated that he'd been invited to the house by another of its residents earlier that night. The woman knew nothing about that, she told the officers, and asked the man to leave, which he did.
Montauk
The manager of the I.G.A. was watching on the morning of Sept. 23 as a customer, using the self-checkout, loaded up his reusable bag with groceries, and only scanned a portion of them before leaving. She called police, saying that he'd done the same thing just a few days before and she had photos of his car. She did not want to pursue charges, she said, but wanted him banned from the store. Police traced the license plate and found the man at a Montauk Highway residence, where he stated that he "believed he had checked out all items taken from the store." He was advised that he is no longer welcome there.
A man wearing a "construction jacket" and holding "what appeared to be a sledgehammer" was knocking on his door, a worried Dogwood Street resident told police that same morning, and they found a man matching the caller's description still standing outside the house. He stated that he worked for a survey company, and had knocked on the door to inform the homeowner that his deer fence was over the property line. Police called the homeowner back to relay the message.
On Sept. 22, a New York City woman who told police she works for an international news agency reported that her work laptop had been stolen from the trunk of a Surf Taxi that she'd hailed at the train station. After loading her luggage into the trunk, she said, she saw another passenger, a man in a hooded sweatshirt, sitting in front next to the driver, who told her they'd drop him off on the way to her hotel. When they reached his destination, she said, she heard him "rummaging through bags in the trunk," and when she got to her room she discovered her MacBook, the property of her employer, missing from her backpack. She requested documentation of the incident, and apparently returned to the city, as she did not request follow-up.
Sag Harbor
Men were "rearranging" the metal benches in front of Yummylicious, the store's owner reported on the night of Sept. 23, and an officer arrived to find four men seated outside. They'd moved the benches "because they wanted to hang out," they explained. They were instructed to return them to their former positions.
He believed he'd been "racially profiled" at Schiavoni's Market, a man complained at police headquarters on Sept. 24. He'd bought a sandwich the day before and was sitting on a bench outside to eat it, he said, when an employee approached and asked whether he'd paid for it, and demanded a receipt as proof. The patron returned to the store and asked to speak to a manager, who arrived about 10 minutes later and made a statement to the effect of "You guys woke me up for this?" The manager eventually apologized, and the patron left and called his lawyer, who advised him to file a police report of the incident.
The fire marshal called police on Friday afternoon to request a welfare check on a man who'd been standing out front of the municipal building "for multiple hours." The man, who was still there when police arrived, refused to provide his name, but assured the officer that he was "in good condition."
About an hour later, a caller reported that a man "in his 50s," with a blue bicycle, was "in the bushes" on the side of Harrison Street. Officers found a man matching the description at the scene, who told them he was taking a break from bike riding. He'd only been there for about 10 minutes, he said, and would be leaving soon.
Wainscott
An employee of the Speedway convenience store had been stealing scratch-off lottery tickets "for a number of months," the manager told police Friday afternoon, and she wanted to press charges. Officers determined that the "evidence" provided by the manager did not contain enough details of the alleged incidents to warrant an arrest, and encouraged her to contact the department again if she could obtain better documentation. She then requested that the employee be banned from the property, and police informed him of the ban.
