Long Beach man extradited from Virginia

Casey Fitzgerald, the Long Beach man accused of shooting and killing a man on West Hudson Street in March, was extradited from Virginia to Nassau County on May 7.

Federal marshals caught and detained Fitzgerald, 20, in Chesterfield County, Virginia, on an arrest warrant and charged him with second-degree murder on April 16. After Fitzgerald was extradited on May 7, he was arraigned the following day at First District Court in Hempstead.

According to police, Fitzgerald, who lived at 31 Hudson St. in Long Beach, shot Ernest Cummings, 46, outside a home at 19 E. Hudson St. at about 3:34 p.m. on March 22. When Long Beach police arrived at the scene, they found Cummings lying on the ground, and less than an hour later he was pronounced dead at South Nassau Communities Hospital in Oceanside.

Detective Sgt. Richard Laursen of the Nassau County Police Department's Homicide Squad said that before the shooting, at about 3 p.m., Fitzgerald and Cummings, both owners of pit bulls, had an argument. "It's basically over treatment of the dogs," Laursen said. "After the heated argument, our victim goes home and puts his dogs away and leaves his house. When he gets outside, Casey's waiting for him. Three shots are fired, one of which hits Cummings in the face."

Laursen said that police canvassed the neighborhood and learned that Fitzgerald might be hiding in a house that Long Beach detectives subsequently searched. They concluded, however, that he had already fled the scene.

An anonymous tip on Crime Stoppers, the police phone line, led authorities to Virginia, and the U.S. Marshals Fugitive Task Force found Fitzgerald in Chesterfield County. "We don't know the exact house he was staying in," Laursen said, "but we were given information to stake out a certain area, and he showed up."

Diane Merchant, Fitzgerald's mother, told the Herald that for a couple of months before Cummings was killed, and on the day he was shot, he had antagonized her son and threatened him with his pit bulls. "Ernest was trying to kill my son," Merchant said. "He was bullying my son with his dogs."