Heroin addicts describe their first high as the ultimate escape, a 20-hour fix starting with a pleasure rush that races from the tip of the tongue throughout the body and steadily progresses toward hallucinations that transfix a user in a state of semiconscious euphoria. more

Twenty-two people, including two Bellmore men and one Bellmore woman, were arrested last Tuesday and early Wednesday morning and charged in connection with a nationwide quaalude trafficking and distribution ring that went from Baldwin to Brooklyn to California. more

Updated: 2 p.m., Wednesday, March 17, 2010 Police have arrested a North Merrick School District custodian, Joseph Latona, 27, and charged him with sale and possession of heroin. more

Police arrested an East Meadow woman on Saturday and charged her with selling drugs in her Jeep Cherokee, with her 2-year-old child in the back seat. more

At 3:40 p.m. on Feb. 5, a 911 call was placed from the Rite Aid Pharmacy on Merrick Road in Bellmore. Two young women had allegedly stolen items from the store, authorities said. Nicole Castillo, 21, of Bellmore and Nicole Hughes, 22, of East Meadow, got into a 1998 Chrysler Sebring driven by Christopher Castillo, 23, of North Bellmore. more

Police responded to Merrick Avenue Middle School this morning at around 9:30 a.m. to investigate a threat made on Facebook that authorities called "fictitous." more

A recent string of fires at Calhoun High School in North Merrick has prompted an arson investigation, officials say. According to Vincent McManus, division supervisor at the Nassau County Fire Marshal's Office, there have been six suspicious fires at the school since Nov. 19, three of which the North Merrick Fire Department responded to. more

Frank Carney, a 16-year-old from Bellmore, was arrested on Nov. 6 and charged with committing a hate crime in Merrick, police said. According to authorities, a dark Nissan pulled up in front of a 22-year-old man walking on Alice Avenue in Merrick. Two people got out of the car, one armed with a knife, and began to chase the man, yelling anti-gay slurs. more

A man posing as a county worker conned an elderly couple last Tuesday afternoon to gain access to their North Bellmore home and stole jewelry inside, police said. This "distraction burglary" took place at a home on Carley Court at about 3:45 p.m. on Tuesday, Oct. 20. A man described to be in his 50s with a walkie-talkie on his belt and wearing a blue baseball cap with "county" on it approached an 88-year-old man who was in his garage, convincing the homeowner that he needed to go into his backyard to inspect a neighbor's fence, according to police. While he distracted the elderly man and his wife, another man who police believe was his cohort, entered their home and allegedly burglarized it, police said. When the 81-year wife became suspicious and demanded to see the subject's identification, the man told her he would go get it, but never came back. It was then that she went into her bedroom and discovered that the jewelry was missing, according to Nassau County Police. more

Police charged Leonidas Cotsifas, 50, of Bethpage with attempted murder and several other crimes on Thursday afternoon after he allegedly struck a 71-year-old man on the head with a paving stone in his Nassau Street home in Bellmore, critically injuring him. more