Sometime after 4 a.m. on a stormy Sunday morning, while the village of Seaview slept, at least two young men went through the streets stealing bicycles, knocking down fences, breaking lights and smashing the window at the Seaview Market. Multiple homes and businesses suffered thousands of dollars in damages in the early hours of Aug. 13.
The vandals first abandoned a stolen bike on the beach at the top of Duneway. They then proceeded toward the bay, kicking in gates and fences at six homes along the street. David Gold of 27 Duneway said he was not home, but some of his neighbors mistook the noise for thunder. “I’ve never seen anything like this in all my years here in Seaview,” he said.
When they reached Central Walk, they set their sights on Seaview Market.
“They only broke the outside pane, but the whole window has to be replaced,” said longtime proprietor Wes Little. He added that the market’s surveillance camera inexplicably went black for about 10 minutes right around the time of the event.
“When you mess with the Market, you mess with all of us,” said a local resident who requested to remain anonymous.
Seaview marina video caught images of two men at the south west entry. One of the men scaled the fence adjacent to the gate. The other guy struggled to hoist yet another stolen bike over the fence to his cohort before hopping the fence himself. (It seems it never occurred to that they could open the gate from the inside.) They tossed the bike into the bay, then proceeded to smash lights atop five stanchions along the bulkhead.
Seaview Association President Thomas Ruskin said the video probably spared a boat from damage as the bike was fully submerged.
“We couldn’t see the bike,” he said, “but we knew about where they threw it. So, we dredged it out with a grappling hook.”
As a final act, upon finding an inflated float against the fence, the two boarded the vessel and paddled by hand into the dark choppy waters of the Great South Bay. Sgt. Lynch of the Suffolk County Police Marine Bureau said there would have been no way for them to control the float once they left the mouth of the marina.
David Mahler was sleeping on his live-aboard yacht when his starboard camera caught a glimpse of the culprits paddling away at roughly 4:50 a.m., but it was too dark to be of any value. The marina video however, was surprisingly clear given a lack of light and the moderate rainfall that morning.
The Suffolk County Police Department’s investigation remains ongoing. If you think you recognize either of the alleged perpetrators, you are encouraged to contact Crime Stoppers at 1-800-220-8477.
Editor’s Note: The September 1, 2023 print edition version of this news article has a typographical error citing the incident date as “Sunday, August 23.” The error has been corrected in the online version.
