Police: Levittown man menaced reporter with knife

A man was charged with menacing a news reporter who approached him near the garage of his Levittown home to question him about comments he made on social media about being stuck in traffic during a firefighter’s funeral.

Jeremy Henggeler, 40, of Rope Lane, was awaiting arraignment in First District Court in Hempstead on charges of menacing in the second-degree and criminal possession of a weapon, Nassau County police said.

When Henggeler was approached by a News 12 Long Island reporter about 6:30 p.m. Monday, he pulled a knife from a sheath on his hip, approached her and told her to get off his property, video from the scene showed. The reporter on the video is Virginia Huie.

Police said Henggeler “approached her in a threatening manner.”

Henggeler told Newsday earlier that he was stuck in traffic Thursday during the funeral of FDNY firefighter William Tolley of Bethpage, who fell to his death from a Queens rooftop while at a fire scene April 20.

He had posted on Facebook: “Stuck in traffic for over an hour, with no escape options, all because some agent of the state died.” He also wrote additional comments that included profanity.