Police report holiday weekend arrests

Extra police officers on land and sea helped deal with drunken drivers, intoxicated boaters and people shooting off illegal fireworks over the holiday weekend.

Forty-nine people were arrested on charges of driving while intoxicated in Nassau during the July Fourth weekend, one less than the holiday weekend last year, police said Tuesday. Suffolk police said 67 people were charged with driving while intoxicated between 4 p.m. Friday and 8 a.m. Tuesday. During last year's holiday weekend, 53 people were charged with driving while intoxicated, a police spokeswoman said.

Despite the crackdown, police said a driver killed in a Fourth of July crash in Plainview was driving under the influence of alcohol. The victim, Michael Sklarsky, 51, of Massapequa, crashed into another car Monday shortly before 9 p.m., police said.

Police said Sklarsky was driving south in the right lane of the Seaford-Oyster Bay Expressway in his 1992 Honda when he struck a 2011 Hyundai in the center lane. The 62-year-old woman driving the Hyundai, who was not identified, was uninjured.

Police also were on the lookout for boaters navigating under the influence.

Two people were arrested in Nassau on charges of boating while intoxicated , Nassau police said, from 7 p.m. Friday through 7 a.m. Tuesday. Last year, there were none.

In Suffolk, two people were accused of boating while intoxicated over the weekend. A year earlier, there were no arrests in Suffolk, police said.

In Suffolk, some of the increase in DWI arrests was attributed to an aggressive-driving task force created in April.

The Suffolk Sheriff's Department and State Police did not have figures readily available.

Suffolk police officials said Tuesday they were not aware of any arrests for illegal fireworks over the weekend and Nassau police said they were compiling information.

As for fireworks accidents, a man lighting a mortar outside his Centereach home Monday night was seriously injured when the device misfired.

Alexander Abel, 33, was in stable condition at Stony Brook University Medical Center after the misfire, which took place about 10:30 p.m. outside his home on Smithtown Polk Boulevard, police said.

Sixth Precinct Dep. Insp. Christopher Hatton said Abel had been conducting his own fireworks display at the time. It's not clear if police will file formal charges against Abel. Hatton said Abel was "extensively injured" on the right side of his face and neck after a pipe with a mortar in it exploded.

Hatton said the pipe exploded while Abel examined why the mortar didn't go off.

On Tuesday, five people were taken to Mercy Medical Center after a 15-year-old boy lit a firework mortar in a Hempstead middle school during summer school registration, police said. The boy was charged as an adult with first-degree arson and will be arraigned Wednesday at First District Court in Hempstead.

Police said the boy ignited and threw down the mortar about 11 a.m. in the media center at Alverta B. Gray Middle School on Greenwich Street. Summer school classes were in session, school officials said. Three parents and two students were injured, Hempstead school officials said, when people running from the building were trampled, police said. The building also sustained damage.

With John Valenti