What Happened
A 43-year-old North Bellport man was shot and killed at Robert Rowley Park, located at 500 Patchogue Ave. in North Bellport, according to the Suffolk County Police Department. A 911 caller reported the shooting at 7:28 p.m. When officers arrived, they found the man suffering from a gunshot wound. He was transported to NYU Langone Hospital – Suffolk in Patchogue, where he was pronounced dead.
News 12 Long Island reported that large crowds of the man’s family and friends gathered outside the hospital after the shooting. NYU Langone Health implemented temporary visitor restrictions as a precautionary measure; the hospital said “patient care was not disrupted and all clinical services continued as normal.”
News 12 Long Island also reported that earlier in the week, Brookhaven Town Supervisor Dan Panico had said the town was stepping up safety enforcement at Robert Rowley Park following community concerns about people gathering there after dark, and that seven people had been issued summonses at the park, with four of them arrested on outstanding warrants. The Brookhaven Parks Department turned over all available video footage from the park to Suffolk County police to assist with the investigation, News 12 reported.
On This Corridor
Long Island Traffic’s incident registry shows five indexable reports on incidents in North Bellport in the past 12 months, counted from LIT’s deduplicated registry of currently published reports by incident date.
What Officials Have Said Next
Suffolk County Police Homicide Squad detectives are asking anyone with information on the shooting to call 631-852-6392. Tips may also be submitted anonymously to Crime Stoppers at 1-800-220-TIPS.
What we don’t know yet: no suspect has been identified or arrested, and no motive has been established by any source.
Sources
- Suffolk County Police Department (official record)
- News 12