East Hampton
An attendant at the North Main Street Gulf station flagged down an officer on the afternoon of Dec. 9 to report a theft of services. He’d filled a tan Toyota that morning with $33.16 worth of gas, he said, but the driver, a woman, handed him a $20 bill and drove off. He managed to get a photo of the car, and police were able to identify its owner as a resident of Kings Court in Springs. They met with her the next morning, and she explained that she’d specifically requested $20 worth of fuel, which was all the cash she had with her, but the attendant had filled the tank. He’d made “this exact mistake numerous times,” she told police, but said she’d return to the station and pay the outstanding balance. The attendant confirmed later that day that the payment had been completed.
Two men in a gray Honda Civic drove up to him on Oakview Highway and told him to get in the car, a caller reported just before noon on Sunday, asking that police stop the car and investigate. He was informed that police cannot intervene in such an incident without observing it themselves.
East Hampton Village
Last Thursday afternoon, after receiving multiple reports from town police of a possible drunken driver in a red Jeep Wrangler, a village officer spotted a vehicle matching the description parked with its engine running at the Exxon station on Montauk Highway. A 34-year-old man from Louisiana in the driver’s seat showed known signs of intoxication, they reported, and performed poorly on a series of field tests. Charged with two D.W.I. misdemeanors and a traffic infraction, he was taken to village headquarters to await a morning arraignment in town justice court.
Following reports of a possible fire on Crossways Friday afternoon, the fire marshal and fire chief quickly determined the source of smoke in the area to be an outdoor pizza oven.
Montauk
A homeowner on Wills Point Road, off Flamingo Avenue, called police on the afternoon of Dec. 9 to report fraud. She owned a lot in a wooded area, she said, and had received a text message from a woman identifying herself as a local investor who wanted to buy it. She’d had a similar experience in February, she told police, when someone listed the property for sale without her knowledge, and she worried that the person was trying to steal her identity again. She would not respond to the text message, she said, and would notify police if she received further inquiries about the property.
A surveyor reported the theft of his metal detector last Thursday. While conducting a survey of a property on Old Montauk Highway, he detected metal along the property line, he said, and wanted to document it. He left the detector at the location and went back into the house to retrieve his material. When he returned five to 10 minutes later, he said, the bright yellow Schonstedt Maggie Magnetic Locator, valued at $1,000, was gone. An officer was unable to get in touch with neighboring homeowners, and the surveyor had requested documentation for insurance purposes.
Sag Harbor
He’d received a suspicious envelope with no accompanying correspondence, a Liberty Street man told police on Dec. 8, a Monday, and another envelope over the weekend containing two letters about the “behavior” of certain neighbors of his, with whom he has “never had problems.” He feared that the letters could be attempts at blackmail, he said. An officer documented the incident and requested copies of the letters for the case file.
A security guard at Pierson High School reported a “suspicious male” wearing a face mask and “riding a bicycle in circles” near the school gym on Dec. 9. The cyclist “didn’t appear to have any reason to” be there, he said. Police located the young man, who stated that he was waiting for his friends to get out of school, and that he was wearing a mask “because it’s cold outside today.”
Springs
A Fort Pond Boulevard man told police he’d been the victim of a road rage incident on Dec. 9. He was headed home that afternoon, he said, when a blue pickup truck stopped in the roadway and the driver got out “in an aggressive manner” and started yelling at him. He provided the truck’s license plate number, which police traced to a resident of Fireplace Road. Officers interviewed the man, who confirmed he’d been driving but said that the caller had been tailgating him in traffic, and he’d gotten out to yell at him to stop. The Fort Pond Boulevard man asked that the incident be documented.