By:John C. O'Connell
Cops subdue man in need of treatment
As many as 40 heavily-armed police officers, some in flak jackets, helmets and armored shields, occupied a Valley Stream neighborhood for 12 hours Monday in an ultimately successful attempt to convince a man to go to the hospital.
Having been told there might be guns in the house on East Euclid Street, around noon police from the Fifth Precinct and members of the Emergency Services Unit and the Bureau of Special Operations set up a command post at the corner of Albermarle and Fenimore streets, alongside the west end of Firemen's Field.
The crisis ended when police, at about 12:30 a.m. Tuesday, broke down a door and entered the house, a source at the scene said. No guns were found in the house after the 49-year-old man was brought to Nassau University Medical Center in East Meadow, police said.
The man, whom police and neighbors said has a history of mental illness, refused requests by Social Services personnel and police to leave his house or let them in so that he could receive treatment. Under state law, a person deemed by the Mental Health Services director or his designees likely to seriously harm himself or others may be involuntarily admitted to a mental hospital. Police are required under law to assist in taking that person into custody and bringing him to the hospital.
Fifth Precinct Insp. William McHale told The Herald what led police to the house. "[We] were called to East Euclid Street by the Nassau County mobile crisis team, who presented the police officer with documents requiring the individual to be taken into custody," McHale said. "Every effort was made to do this voluntarily but the subject barricaded himself in the house and threatened to kill anyone who entered. There were conflicting reports that the subject had a firearm, and he would not deny that when he was interviewed through the window of his home."
The police inspector said that the individual was "clearly out of touch with reality and at some point needed to be hospitalized." Once committed to legally taking into custody a disturbed individual who may cause serious harm to him or another," the police couldn't stop until the matter was resolved.
"This required the deployment of the Crisis Negotiation Team and the Bureau of Special Operations, which are specially trained to deal with these kinds of incidents and resolve them without injury to the public, police officers and the subject," McHale said.
The situation ended after twelve hours of negotiation through the use, finally, of physical force. "The individual violently resisted the officers," McHale said, but "he was overcome without any serious injury to him or a police officer."
A witness to the end of the crisis said that about five armed policemen went through a side door into the Euclid Street house. The man was carried out of the house on a stretcher and put into an ambulance.
Neighbors said that the man's behavior had concerned them before Monday and one, Philip Russo, had called police several times trying to get help for him. On Monday, Russo again called police, beginning what would be an eventful day.
"His father was a big gun collector, so they were afraid there were guns," a neighbor, Philip Russo, said.
"When he was quiet, you wouldn't want a better neighbor; when he was normal. I call him the squirrel man. All the squirrels in the neighborhood knew him. He loved them. He got them trained so that they would come right up to his feet. He'd feed one, and the other one would put his paws up like a dog would. Me, they fear. Him, he's the squirrel man.
"I called [the police] last Saturday because I was intimidated and threatened. His mother is in the hospital and I was talking to him on Saturday and he said 'that's not my mother, that's an FBI plant. He hallucinated and he was paranoid. 'I'm barricading the house, I'm barricading the windows, I got the evidence against Nassau County, I got the evidence against the FBI, I got the bugs, I got the cameras they planted in my house, I got all the evidence. Nassau County's going down.'" Russo quoted the man as saying to him.
"We all were afraid for our lives," Russo said. "He would never let the police in. He told neighbors, after he called them imposters, that 'if I have to, I'll burn this house down.'"
Russo said neighbors congregated Tuesday morning and agreed that it was a horrible experience but the ultimate end was good. "They handled it very well," he said of the police.
But the noon-to-midnight standoff disrupted life on the quiet street and left neighbors upset about the events of the day and worried about days to come.
"We have kids on the block. It was a disaster," said Patricia Mack, who lives three doors west of the man's house. She complained that all of East Euclid Street was sealed off, with no one allowed to come in or go out. People coming home from work couldn't get to their houses.
"They had to go around the block and sleep in their cars. They wouldn't let any of the husbands home; they wouldn't let any of the wives home," Mack said. "They told my husband they'd arrest him if he tried to get into his house. They had sharpshooters across the street, all over the place. We're here with small children and it was horrible."
Further irritating the situation for neighbors, Mack said, was that cars left on the street because they weren't allowed to get into their own driveways were all ticketed.
"My daughter was crying, she was up all night, How much can you distract them with Barney? She's six years old and she sees sharpshooters. She wants to know what's going on."
Mack said she was troubled that the problem might not be over. "They thought he was dangerous enough to have an entire team, I mean there were cops everywhere. I don't think there was a Nassau County cop left that wasn't here in Valley Stream. So now, if they thought he was that dangerous, then what, he's not dangerous next week?
"I understand that he has rights and he gets to live in his house, but you know we all have to live here. We have to live on the block with him and raise our children and get them to school and have them play. I'm sure this is going to be an ongoing saga here."
A spokesperson with the Nassau University Medical Center declined to comment about the man's medical status, or when he might be released.
Robert Remler contributed to this story.
