Police & Courts

A man police allege broke into Bostwick’s Chowder House on Pantigo Road in May was charged with burglary in the third degree early on Friday.

The East Hampton Town Police Department recognized its best of 2025, naming Joseph Riccardi Police Officer of the Year. He was joined by 17 other officers, detectives, and a dispatcher in being recognized for outstanding service.

East Hampton Town’s Citizen Police Academy will be back for a third year starting on March 4.

East Hampton Town will acquire a parcel in Montauk’s downtown on which a multi-department public safety center housing the town’s police, Marine Patrol, Code Enforcement, and East Hampton Volunteer Ocean Rescue operations is planned, it was announced this week.

Suffolk County is among nine counties that have been early backers of Gov. Kathy Hochul’s Local Cops, Local Crimes proposal, a push to limit the actions of federal law enforcement in New York State.

Town police were busy with snow-related car accidents last week.

Police told a Sag Harbor resident that it was the snow, and not a plow, that had toppled a mailbox on Montauk Avenue Extension on Jan. 26.

An East Hampton Library employee told police on Jan. 20 that an elderly man who has a history of “tying women’s undergarments onto a bicycle at the library” had done it again.

A Montauk woman was airlifted to Stony Brook University Hospital on Jan. 22 after being hit by a car.

The Town of East Hampton formally completed the transition of primary 911 call answering from East Hampton Village to its Police Department Dispatch Center. All 911 calls from landlines within the town (outside the village or Sag Harbor) will now be taken from the town police headquarters in Wainscott.

Someone stole a plaster elephant statue from outside the front door of an apartment on Montauk Highway in Amagansett. The resident told police that she had an idea of who stole the statue, but the accused denied taking it.

A driver who bystanders said appeared intoxicated was arrested outside the Springs School on the afternoon of Jan. 12 and charged with drunken driving.

When contract negotiations for 911 dispatching broke down between East Hampton Town and Village last spring, it became clear that the East Hampton Town Police Department would begin taking the bulk of 911 calls in the township from the village. The turnover was to occur on Jan. 1, but it has now been delayed for at least a month.

“Unwanted guests” were trying to take his belongings and refusing to leave, a Brandywine Drive, Sag Harbor, resident reported to 911 last Thursday, adding that one of them wouldn’t wake up and “may have overdosed.”

An 18-year-old was struck by a Honda sedan while crossing Newtown Lane in East Hampton on Saturday evening, near the intersection of Muchmore Lane.

An East Hampton man was charged with felony drunken driving after a traffic stop in East Hampton on Jan. 3, just over a year after being convicted of two earlier D.W.I. offenses.

A Bay Shore woman was arrested on a felony assault charge early Saturday morning at a residence on Old Montauk Highway in Montauk.

A local man is facing two drunken-driving felony charges after a traffic stop in East Hampton on Friday night.

A white van had been parked outside his house in Wainscott for about an hour, a caller reported Saturday evening. An officer drove over, saw the van parked outside the house with its hazard lights on, and spoke to the driver, who identified himself as an Amazon employee.

Young members of the Long Island Youth Club have been canvassing around East Hampton for years, generally at school holidays, selling candy or asking for donations, but residents across Suffolk County are increasingly asking questions about the practice.

A Hyundai sedan overturned Monday morning after striking a landscaping truck on Toilsome Lane, injuring the Hyundai’s driver, whose account of the accident was questioned.

Several people were injured in a collision in Springs between an S.U.V. and a Jeep last week, and George Watson of the Dock bar and grill was injured while riding his bicycle in Montauk.

He’d seen people on Town Pond and was concerned, a village resident told police on Dec. 16. An officer responded to see several men skating and playing ice hockey. No action was necessary.

While there is still no official cause in a summertime death of a woman at the Montauk Yacht Club, a search for answers through the media has revealed new details, including from the man who was on the boat with her that night.

A plaque installed outside Stony Brook Southampton Hospital’s Emergency Medical Technician room last week officially dedicates the space to the late Randy Hoffman of East Hampton, a critical-care E.M.T. who worked with fire and ambulance departments across the South Fork and was credited with saving at least two lives during his long tenure as a first responder.

Responding Sunday night to a noise complaint from Wainscott Hollow Road, an officer heard loud music from a house and knocked on the door. The woman who answered said they were having a Christmas party.

East Hampton Village is now home to 14 Flock license plate reader surveillance cameras, which amounts to one for every 108 full-time residents, if you go by the 2020 census data. They're heralded by local police for aiding in enforcement and investigations, but they use a technology that has proven controversial nationally with those concerned about civil liberties.

An East Hampton man was charged with a felony last week, accused of violating an active order of protection.

Two automobile accidents on Montauk Highway, one in Wainscott and another in Amagansett, resulted in injuries last week, as did a third in Springs.

A security guard at Pierson High School in Sag Harbor reported a “suspicious male” wearing a face mask and “riding a bicycle in circles” near the school gym. The young man subsequently told police he was waiting for his friends to get out of school, and said he was wearing a mask “because it’s cold outside today.”