Cops: Man shot at cars on Smithtown's Main Street

After a two-hour search, Suffolk police arrested a man last night they said shot randomly at cars traveling along busy Main Street in Smithtown - shattering the windshield in one.

The arrest of a man whom police described only as "in his 20s" came at about 7 p.m.

A few hours earlier, law enforcement authorities got a report of shots being fired from a second-story apartment across the street from Smithtown Town Hall, said Fourth Precinct Insp. James Rhodes.

Police said four adults and a 20-month-old girl were removed from the home by Suffolk Emergency Services officers, members of an elite unit equipped with body armor and shields.

Several rifles and pellet guns were recovered from the apartment, police said.

Only one of the occupants was immediately taken into custody, Rhodes said, adding that three of them, including the man being charged, came out of the apartment unit voluntarily. A fourth occupant left the apartment only after police entered it by force, officials said.

None of the occupants or officers was injured during the incident, Rhodes said.

Police declined to identify the man they said was the shooter and said they did not have a clear motive for the incident.

It was unclear whether the man or the other people lived at the apartment.

Charges are pending, but Rhodes declined to list them, saying the man would be charged, at the least, with reckless endangerment.

First-degree reckless endangerment is a Class D felony, punishable by up to 7 years in prison, and second-degree reckless endangerment is a Class A misdemeanor, punishable by up to a year in jail.

Rhodes said the shootings began about 5 p.m. when the rear windshield of a car going past Town Hall was shot out.

The motorist, a woman, was not hurt when she drove along Main Street, said Councilman Edward Wehrheim. He said she quickly ducked into the Town Hall parking lot and told a Public Safety officer who was in the lot that someone shot at her.

The officer heard another shot being fired at another car and he located the source of the shooting as a second-story apartment across the street.

He notified county police, who arrived, cordoned off the area and diverted traffic as they began searching for the gunman, Wehrheim said.

Traffic was blocked in both directions during the two-hour standoff, but it was restored to normal about 7 p.m.

With Stacey Altherr and Zachary R. Dowdy