Police & Courts

In 2023, for 911 calls classified as "highest priority," the East Hampton Town Police Department's average response time was 5 minutes, 38 seconds. Officers made 163 drunken-driving arrests, assisted on 2,530 medical calls and nearly 1,800 fire-related emergencies, and logged 12 "use of force" incidents over the 12-month period. Those were just a few of the statistics presented by Chief Michael Sarlo to the East Hampton Town Board last week, capping off a year of protecting 70 square miles from Wainscott to Montauk.

The Village of Sag Harbor and its police chief, Austin J. McGuire, have signed a separation agreement that allows Mr. McGuire to retire on Friday, March 29, despite his efforts to remain in the post.

Police were called Friday afternoon to investigate a report that people were camping illegally in the Grace Estate Preserve. They came upon three men from Nassau County who’d put up a tent and built a campfire. Police told them to put out the fire, then issued a ticket for open burning and directed them to leave immediately.

A 29-year-old East Hampton woman went to police headquarters on March 4 to report being the victim of sexual assault, stemming from an incident on Feb. 23 at a house in town.

A 28-year-old Amagansett woman was arrested Friday afternoon on felony charges of larceny, stemming from a Feb. 15 incident at the M&T Bank branch on Newtown Lane in East Hampton Village.

The New York State Assembly is considering the Deadly Driving Bill, which would change the definition of “drug” in state law to include “any substance or combination of substances that impair, to any extent, physical or mental abilities,” making it easier to prosecute drug-related driving violations. Right now, if police cannot ascertain just what substance is involved, they may not be able to make an arrest in the first place.

On Feb. 26, a few minutes before midnight, an officer patrolling Sag Harbor's Long Wharf discovered that a car had smashed into a wooden guardrail. Surveillance camera footage revealed that the damage was caused by a driver who, the very next day but in an unrelated incident, was charged with driving while intoxicated.

Scott Frankenbach, a Sag Harbor Village police officer, was named the village’s Officer of the Year. “He’s been an asset to us ever since he was hired,” said Lt. Robert Drake.

A woman using her backyard hot tub on Hand’s Creek Road was accused by a neighbor Sunday morning of being naked outdoors. When police arrived to investigate the report of a “nude person,” the woman answered the door wearing a bathing suit and towel. “No police action necessary,” the officer concluded.

A 16-year-old girl from Massachusetts accidentally hit the gas pedal too hard while making a three-point turn on South Essex Street near South Etna Avenue in Montauk on Feb. 20, causing her minivan to crash through a split-rail fence, drop off an eight-foot ledge, and land upside down.

Two men were charged with felony drunken driving over the last two weeks, one in Amagansett and the other in Sag Harbor.

“Artistic vandalism.” That’s how a police officer initially described the carved tree trunk he found late Saturday night in the parking lot of Amagansett’s Big Albert’s Beach, while patrolling the area for illegal dumping, which has been a problem for police lately.

Five cars were ticketed on the evening of Feb. 14 for parking illegally on Church Street near Buell Lane, in the vicinity of Most Holy Trinity Catholic Church in East Hampton Village, following a complaint from a nearby resident. There was an Ash Wednesday service taking place at the time.

East Hampton's Officer of the Year award is given in memory of Sgt. Ryan P. Lynch, who died of cancer in 2005 after serving on the town force for 10 years. For 2023, the honoree is Officer William Hamilton.

Driving while intoxicated, usually a misdemeanor, is elevated to a felony charge when a child is in the vehicle at the time, under New York State's Leandra's Law.

On Saturday, police and firefighters were notified of a “liquid spill” and shattered glass in front of the Empire Gas Station on North Main Street. It turned out that a delivery truck driver had lost “an entire case of Corona beers, which shattered into the roadway.” The driver cleaned up the mess himself.

A Bridgehampton man was charged with two first-degree felonies, “criminal sex act by forcible compulsion” and criminal contempt, following an incident at a house on Accabonac Road in East Hampton.

A 20-year-old East Hampton man has pleaded guilty to raping an 11-year-old girl eight times between December 2021 and January 2022, Suffolk County District Attorney Ray Tierney announced Wednesday.

Christopher Hansen, a detective in the East Hampton Village Police Department, was selected as police officer of the year, at the Jan. 26 Southampton Town Kiwanis Club’s Annual Police Officer of the Year banquet.

An East Quogue man turned himself in to the East Hampton Village Police Department on Jan. 31 after allegedly violating a court-issued order of protection.

A building on Lake Montauk with four cottage-style apartments went up in flames on Monday morning, bringing out crews from three fire departments that worked for about two and a half hours to put out the blaze at the East Lake Drive property.

A passer-by who gave her name only as Sophie reported Friday afternoon that “two Black men were smoking weed in front of Murf’s Tavern” in Sag Harbor. Officers dismissed the call: It is no longer illegal in New York State for adults to smoke marijuana.

A woman out for a walk found the body of a Middle Island man in front of a house on Industrial Road near Navy Road in Montauk on the morning of Jan. 21, East Hampton Town police said this week.

On Jan. 8, someone called the Suffolk County CrimeStoppers line alleging the “illegal dumping of records” off the trustee road at Barcelona Point. An officer went to investigate that afternoon, but “was unable to check all of the access roads in the area before it got too dark,” according to the report.

On Monday, four and a half years after her arrest, Tenia Campbell of Medford was sentenced to 20 years to life in prison for suffocating her twin 2-year-old daughters to death. She was arrested a few miles west of Montauk Point on June 27, 2019, after a search involving multiple police jurisdictions.

Peter Aviles — sought by police for the last 13 months in connection with a million-dollar heist that happened in Sag Harbor on Sept. 25, 2022 — was charged with burglary in the second degree, a class C violent felony this week.

A 15-year-old boy from East Hampton was safely reunited with his family on Monday, almost five days after he had been reported missing.

On Jan. 11, at the Mobil gas station on Main Street, passers-by noticed what turned out to be “fire suppression materials” sprayed all over the pavement there. An employee told police that his jacket had “got caught on an extinguisher pin” the night before, which apparently “activated the system in error.”

East Hampton Town announced on Friday the ratification of contracts with its Police Benevolent Association and the Superior Officers Association, including amendments focusing on wages, revised shift calculations, the addition of Juneteenth as a recognized holiday, field training compensation, equipment and technology implementation, and a revised work schedule.

East Hampton Town police arrested a 55-year-old East Hampton man early Sunday morning on drunken-driving charges, which were elevated to the felony level because of a previous D.W.I. conviction within the past 10 years.