Police and Fire

Twenty-five years ago Saturday night, Paris-bound TWA Flight 800 exploded in the air about 10 miles south of East Moriches, killing all 230 passengers and crew on board and casting a pall that lingered across Long Island for weeks afterward, as search and recovery teams labored to retrieve the remains of the victims and pieces of the wreckage from the ocean floor.

Sag Harbor emergency service workers blocked off Main Street in the village from Carruthers Alley north to Bay Street shortly after 11 a.m. on Friday morning as they attempted to free a woman whose hand was stuck under the seat of her late model BMW SUV.

Bill Bratton, Now A Hampton Bays Resident, Watching Local Police Reform Efforts Closely

But concern over the museum’s collection of fire memorabilia and the soundness of the building itself, which was constructed in 1833, has spurred the Village Board to commission Cameron Engineering to undertake an initial study to determine what needs to be done to protect it.

Serendipity came into play on Thursday afternoon, June 10, when a fledgling screech owl fell from a nest in Mashashimuet Park and fluttered about the ground helplessly.

Stephanie Bitis, a former general manager of Long Island Radio Broadcasting in Water Mill, pleaded guilty in November 2020 to access device fraud for using a company credit card to rack up personal charges.

David Wisner, the local pilot charged by Sag Harbor Police with reckless endangerment in the second degree, a misdemeanor, for buzzing downtown Sag Harbor’s waterfront on April 13, pleaded not guilty at his arraignment in Sag Harbor Justice Court on Friday, May 7.

The sentencing of Stephanie Bitis, a former radio manager from Sag Harbor who pleaded guilty last fall to fraudulently using a company credit card for personal expenses, was adjourned on Thursday, April 29, to give federal prosecutors and the defense time to nail down just how much money she bilked her former employer out of.

Sag Harbor Village Police were called to Bay Street Theater at about 1 p.m. on Saturday to respond to a report of protesters blocking the entrance. Police said the complaint was made by Tracy Mitchell, Bay Street’s executive director, about three hours before a forum was scheduled to be held to discuss the theater’s plans to move to a permanent home at the site of the Water Street shops complex about a block away.

Airport Manager Jim Brundige has banned local pilot David J. Wisner from operating any aircraft at the town-owned East Hampton Airport for 90 days, effective April 28, because of the “careless and reckless operation” of his Cessna 182 on April 13, when he buzzed Sag Harbor and Springs at extremely low altitudes.

The pilot, David J. Wisner, 47, of East Hampton, was processed at headquarters and released on his own recognizance for an arraignment in Sag Harbor Justice Court at 10 a.m. on Friday, May 7, Police Chief Austin J. McGuire disclosed later on Friday.

A local pilot repeatedly flew his airplane at an extremely low altitude over Sag Harbor’s waterfront for about 15 minutes beginning at 5:30 p.m. on Tuesday, April 13.

While the law legalizes possession of marijuana for what could be called individual use — you are permitted to possess up to 3 ounces for personal use — the legal retail sale is still a ways off. And when it does come online, individual towns and villages can decide how public that public sale can be.

The man charged with striking and killing an Amagansett mother in January while she was pushing her two toddlers in a stroller along the shoulder of Montauk Highway was officially charged with two felonies on Thursday, April 1, for leaving the scene of an accident and trying to throw police off his trail.

East Hampton Town Police have arrested a Springs man and charged him in connection with the armed robbery of a woman near the Springs School earlier this month.