Cops: Boater arrested after firing rifle

A Harbor Isle man faces a weapons charge after marine officers and U.S. Coast Guard personnel learned he had fired an assault rifle two miles off Atlantic Beach on Friday, police said.

Frederick Schenker, 62, of McKinley Avenue, was arrested and charged with third-degree criminal possession of a weapon after his sailboat was escorted to the Woodmere Yacht Club in East Rockaway at 2:10 p.m., Nassau County police said.

Police said Marine Bureau officers, a helicopter and a Coast Guard vessel went to the scene in the Atlantic Ocean in response to a vessel in distress cal after Schenker was seen shooting off what were believed to be flares.

But, police said, an investigation revealed Schenker had fired an AR-15 rifle, which, they said, "fits the criteria of an assault rifle."

Arraignment details were not immediately available.