The Greenway Trail runs between Port Jefferson Station and Setauket. File photo
Days after human skeletal remains were discovered near the Greenway Trail, a Suffolk County police officer assured local residents that he would be patrolling the hiking and biking path in the warmer weather.
Officer William Gibaldi said at the March 25 meeting of the Port Jefferson Station/Terryville Civic Association that he had just driven the trail, which runs between Setauket and Port Jefferson Station, the day before in a police car with another officer.
“When it warms up a little, we’re going to be riding our bikes through there, at least two or three times a week,” he said. “We’re gonna be in there.”
On March 22, around 4 p.m., skeletal remains were spotted close to the 3.5-mile trail at its stretch off of Gnarled Hollow Road. Police are investigating the human remains, and officials have not yet released the sex of the deceased or the person’s cause of death.
It was also unclear when the person died and how long the body had been in the place it was found.
The Greenway Trail, which opened in 2009 and originally ran from Gnarled Hollow Road to Sheep Pasture Road, was recently extended by two miles — one mile on each end — to bring it all the way to Limroy Lane in Setauket and close to Route 112 in Port Jefferson Station. While construction was largely completed in late 2013, the community officially opened the trail with a ceremony in early 2014.
“The inspector of the precinct, he wants us on that trail all the time anyway, so we’re gonna be on that trail a lot,” Gibaldi said. “You’ll see us in there, hanging out, riding around or … driving a car.”
A Long Island woman was charged with drunk driving after she allegedly clipped a police officer with her car on Tuesday afternoon and fled the scene.
According to the Suffolk County Police Department, the police officer, Dennis Hendrickson, was standing on the shoulder of the Long Island Expressway in Hauppauge, west of exit 56, to assist with traffic control after a crash that closed all westbound lanes. At 2:10 p.m., police said, a 2012 Volkswagen rapidly approached Hendrickson, who signaled to the driver to slow down.
Police allege that the driver, 52-year-old Theresa Finnin-Hunt, disregarded those signals and struck Hendrickson on his right arm and hand as he tried to move out of the way. The suspect allegedly did not stop, continuing west on the LIE shoulder before she was stopped on the highway’s north service road in Brentwood, near Wicks Road, shortly afterward.
Finnin-Hunt, a Sea Cliff resident, was arrested and charged with first-degree reckless endangerment, driving while intoxicated, leaving the scene of an accident with personal injury, third-degree unlawful fleeing of a police officer and reckless driving.
Attorney information for the defendant was not immediately available. She was scheduled to be arraigned on Wednesday.
Police said Hendrickson, a member of the SCPD’s 4th Precinct Community Support Unit, was treated for non-life-threatening injuries at Stony Brook University Hospital.
A senior citizen was seriously injured on Monday night as he crossed Nesconset Highway near the Smith Haven Mall.
According to the Suffolk County Police Department, Medford resident Harold Edelman, 70, was walking south across the busy highway, near Hallock Road, at 11:15 p.m. He was struck by a 2012 Nissan Cube that had been going east on Nesconset Highway.
Edelman had serious head injuries and was listed in critical condition at Stony Brook University Hospital, police said. The Cube’s driver, 38-year-old Oakland Gardens resident Julie Chung, was not hurt.
Police impounded the car for a safety check and detectives are investigating the crash.
Anyone with information may contact the detectives at 631-854-8452. All calls will be kept confidential.
DA says suspect faces life in prison if convicted of shooting Mark Collins
District Attorney Tom Spota says Sheldon Leftenant faces life in prison if convicted of shooting police officer Mark Collins. Photo by Barbara Donlon
A shot in the neck was close to fatal for a Suffolk County cop injured in the line of duty, according to a details of the struggle with his alleged shooter law enforcement officials recapped last week.
District Attorney Tom Spota released new details surrounding the March 11 shooting of Suffolk County Police Officer Mark Collins in a news conference on Friday afternoon. The DA said after investigators spoke with Collins, they found out the play-by-play of what happened that night in Huntington Station.
The suspect, Sheldon Leftenant, 22, of Huntington Station was indicted by a grand jury in Riverhead on Friday shortly before the news conference. Leftenant pleaded not guilty to attempted aggravated murder of a police officer, resisting arrest and second-degree criminal possession of a weapon.
The suspect could be facing up to life in prison if convicted of the charges, Spota said.
Collins, who worked for the 2nd Precinct’s gang unit, pulled over the vehicle where Leftenant, who is allegedly a member of the “Tip Top Boyz” gang, was a passenger. After being asked to get out of the vehicle, the suspect fled out of the right rear passenger door and Collins chased after him.
“Collins gave chase, he had his police-issued taser in hand,” Spota said. “He never drew his weapon.”
The officer continued to chase Leftenant when he cornered the suspect, after Leftenant was not being able to open a gate at 11 Mercer Court. A confrontation took place and the officer tasered Leftenant. The officer was unaware the suspect had a gun, Spota.
“Collins successfully deployed his taser twice in Leftenant’s back and while it brought the defendant to the ground, unfortunately it did not completely immobilize him,” Spota said.
The officer dropped down to handcuff Leftenant when a struggle ensued. At that point, Collins was on top of Leftenant and reported seeing two blue flashes and hearing four gunshots in quick succession. The officer was shot in the neck and hip. The neck shot, had it been any closer, could have hit the carotid artery and killed him, officials said.
“Police Officer Collins knew right away he had been shot because he couldn’t feel anything on his right side and he couldn’t move at all his right arm or his right leg,” Spota said.
Collins began to try and drag himself over to a stoop on the property, as he was trying to protect himself the best he could.
“He tried to draw his weapon, but he had lost the complete use of his right arm, right leg, that’s why he is actually crawling to get over here,” the DA said, pointing to a spot on a photo of the crime scene where the officer went to protect himself.
Spota said Collins knew the gun was .38 caliber revolver and that there were at least two shots left. He covered himself with his police-issued bullet proof vest and faced it towards the suspect, as he felt Leftenant would walk over and shoot him again.
After allegedly shooting the officer, Leftenant fled and dropped the weapon in the backyard of 13 Mercer Court. He then ran about a quarter-mile away from the scene and hid. According to Spota, canine units quickly arrived and found the gun and Leftenant.
Two bullets were found inside the Mercer Court home where the struggle took place. While people were home as the two struggled outside, no one was injured by the shots.
After court, Leftenant’s lawyer Ian Fitzgerald said the defendant was sorry to be in this situation, but wouldn’t comment any further.
“I don’t think he showed any mercy at all, after all he fires two shots one in his neck virtually point blank range, that doesn’t tell me there is any mercy at all,” Spota said.
During Leftenant’s arraignment, a handful of the suspect’s family members were in the audience. While they wouldn’t comment, they left the courtroom chanting, “Free Shel.”
Human remains were found along the Greenway Trail in Setauket. Photo by Phil Corso
Skeletal remains were spotted in Setauket on Sunday, prompting a police investigation, officials said.
Suffolk County police were seen investigating the human remains soon after they were found, around 4 p.m. on Sunday near at a stretch of the hiking and biking Greenway Trail off of Gnarled Hollow Road, police said. The cause of death was unknown, and it was still unclear whether the remains belonged to a male or female, cops said.
The medical examiner’s office is still determining the cause of death, police said.
The Greenway Trail runs 3.5 miles between Setauket and Port Jefferson Station. It starts at Limroy Lane on the western end and goes to the state department of transportation’s Park and Ride lot near Route 112.
Police have arrested the man they say is responsible for an early morning hit-and-run in Coram that killed a pedestrian.
According to the Suffolk County Police Department, East Patchogue resident Abdelgheni Dakyouk, 48, has been charged with leaving the scene of a fatal incident without reporting.
Shortly after the crash on Route 112 on Saturday, March 14, police reported that the victim had been walking north between Granny Road and Route 25 when he was hit by a light-colored, possibly tan vehicle. The incident occurred just before 6 a.m. and the driver, whose car had front-end damage, fled north.
Police arrested Dakyouk on March 18, following an investigation by detectives from the SCPD’s Vehicular Crime Unit.
Attorney information for Dakyouk was not available. He was scheduled to be arraigned on March 19.
Officials have not yet named the victim, who was pronounced dead at the scene. But two days after the crash, police announced they had “tentatively identified” him as a 37-year-old Medford resident, awaiting positive identification by detectives and the Office of the Suffolk County Medical Examiner. Police said they had notified the person’s next of kin.
East Northport man was also a firefighter and veteran
Elaine and Salvatore ‘Sam’ Macedonio Sr., on vacation in Italy last year. Photos from Mark Macedonio
By Julianne Cuba
East Northport firefighter, veteran and retired police officer Salvatore “Sam” Macedonio Sr., a former member of what was once the Town of Huntington Police Department, died from complications with lung cancer earlier this month. He was 87.
Macedonio, survived by his wife, Elaine, and his children, Gary Macedonio, Mark J. Macedonio, Lisa M. Macedonio Olofson and Salvatore Macedonio Jr., had served in the U.S. Army Air Corps during World War II.
Following his military service, Macedonio joined the Town of Huntington Police Department as a patrolman in 1954. When the department merged into the Suffolk County Police Department in 1960, Macedonio was one of its first members.
Mark Macedonio said his father was loved very much and he will be sorely missed.
“He knew everybody in the Town of Huntington and everybody knew him,” he said. “He was a very well-known fellow. From his early days growing up in Huntington until the very end, he was a very approachable, kind, person. He was a great listener and peacemaker.”
Macedonio retired from the 2nd Precinct of the Suffolk County Police Department as a senior patrolman in 1973. Since his retirement from the police force, Macedonio had co-founded Vor-Mac Auto Collision Inc. in Greenlawn, which he co-owned with his wife for more than 20 years. During that time, he was also a volunteer firefighter at the East Northport Fire Department for more than 40 years; and he was active for more than 20 of those years.
Sam Macedonio in 2011, at the national World War II Memorial in Washington, D.C. Photo from Mark Macedonio
Following in her father’s footsteps, Macedonio Olofson — along with her husband, Brian, and their two daughters, Katherine and Nicole — joined the East Northport Fire Department as volunteers.
Macedonio Olofson, an EMT and lieutenant of the rescue squad, is also a school nurse at the Norwood Avenue Elementary School in Northport.
“He always taught us to give back to the community and that’s what I’m doing,” she said. “I volunteer all my free time to give back to the community.”
As the middle child in a family of 13 children, family always came first to Macedonio, his daughter said.
Born in Locust Valley on March 11, 1927, Macedonio was forced to quit high school to work on his parent’s farm — Cedar Hill Farm in East Northport — in the midst of the Great Depression. Macedonio was able to receive his high school diploma following his military service.
Henry Johnson, an 86-year-old Huntington Station resident, had worked on the Town of Huntington Police Department the same years Macedonio did.
“I just about never worked with him, but he had a good reputation, he was a hard worker and he was a good police officer,” Johnson said.
As a patrolman, Macedonio led a very distinguished career, his daughter said; he had been issued many commendations, including for bravery, meritorious service and outstanding performance of duty, as well as two heroic life-saving events in the early 1960s, Olofson recalls.
“He was widely known to many Huntington Township residents as a result of his active life, service to the community, humility and great love of all people,” she said.
Former Suffolk County Police Commissioner Richard Dormer sang Macedonio’s praises in an email statement, calling the East Northport man “a special kind of person” who was a “master of verbal judo” and could defuse volatile situations.
“He had no ego issues and brought a steadying and calm influence to his police duties,” Dormer said. “He loved the police department and when we would run into each other over the years, he would always bring up his days serving the people of Huntington Township and Suffolk County. He was so proud to be a cop.”
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