Cops: High school teacher charged with DWI

A high school teacher and former Stony Brook University star quarterback pleaded not guilty Monday to charges that he drove drunk and led police on a high-speed chase in Long Beach this summer.

Timothy Schroeder, 38, who has been suspended from his job teaching social studies at Eastport-South Manor Junior-Senior High School in Manorville, was indicted late last week on charges of felony driving while intoxicated, resisting arrest, fleeing from police, reckless driving and other offenses after police said he fled from them during a July 25 traffic stop. He is free on bail.

Long Beach police said it was Schroeder's third drunken driving arrest. In 2008, Schroeder pleaded guilty to felony drunken driving charges in Suffolk County after fleeing police there, police said.

In Long Beach this summer, police said Schroeder ran from his car on foot. They said it took four police officers and a Good Samaritan to catch him.

Schroeder was seriously injured in the struggle, permanently losing sight in his right eye. His lawyer, William Petrillo, of Rockville Centre, said hurting Schroeder so seriously was not necessary.

"This case will have more to do with the excessive use of force than it will with any alleged DWI," he said.

Long Beach Police did not comment Monday on Petrillo's charge of excessive force.

Schroeder has been a social studies teacher at Eastport-South Manor Junior-Senior High School for 14 years and had been named teacher of the year several times, Petrillo said. He was a quarterback for Stony Brook, then a Division III school, in the 1990s. He set school records, and he was named an All-American in 1995.