By Jeff Lipton
The first incident occurred at 9:50 p.m. when officers Kevin Donohue and Marc Merckling received a report of a man with a gun. When the officers arrived, they saw the suspect, identified as Jonathan Siegel, 36, standing outside his residence at 126 Austin Blvd. holding a shotgun, according to detectives at the 4th Squad.
The suspect allegedly refused orders by police to drop the weapon and pointed it at them when they tried to disarm him, detectives said. According to Detective Lt. Larry Feffer of the 4th Squad, Donohue and Merckling managed to distract the suspect by talking to him, which allowed them to overpower him and grab the shotgun away from him.
³He was threatening to do harm to the officers, who showed extreme restraint,² Feffer said. ³They had every right to use deadly physical force in this case if necessary, but they were able to subdue him without doing that. The officers showed extreme professionalism. They did a fantastic job.²
Siegel was arrested and charged with third-degree criminal possession of a weapon and menacing a police officer and was arraigned in First District Court in Hempstead on Aug. 12.
It was not immediately known what Siegel was doing outside his home armed with a shotgun. No one was reported injured, police said. The suspect was taken to a hospital for observation, officials said.
Following the arrest, police executed a search warrant at the suspect¹s home and found 50 ³dangerous and deadly² weapons, including a number of guns such as an altered rifle and several ³hitting and cutting instruments,² Feffer said.
He was not licensed to carry any of the firearms, Feffer added. In the second incident, which took place about two hours later at 11:40 p.m., 4th Precinct police received a call of shots fired in front of 22 Carolina Ave., detectives said. Police officers arrived and found three small caliber spent shell casings on the outdoor steps of the home, officials said.
They discovered that the suspect allegedly responsible for firing the shots, a 28-year-old man identified as Jason J. Dorfman, was inside the Carolina Avenue home, authorities said. Police executed a search warrant to enter the home and found a Raven Arms .25 caliber handgun, they said. Dorfman was arrested and charged with second- and third-degree criminal possession of a weapon and second-degree reckless endangerment. He was arraigned at First District Court in Hempstead on Aug. 13.
Feffer said Dorfman had just arrived home after attending a wedding and allegedly fired three gunshots into the air outside his home to celebrate.
³Unfortunately, when the bullets go up, they have to come down,² said Feffer.
No one was reported injured, he said. The weapon, which Dorfman was not licensed to carry, was recovered by police.
³Taking guns away from people who are not supposed to possess them is certainly a good thing,² said Feffer, who added that the two incidents on Saturday night were not related.
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