No arrests in Huntington Station birthday killing

A 25-year-old man was shot to death on his birthday as he talked with his father and two cousins on the stoop of a Huntington Station home, Suffolk police said.

Russell Peterman Jr. was pronounced dead after being shot once in the head just before 11 p.m. Tuesday on Railroad Street near Kilburn Avenue, where about 10 men had gathered to drink beer and smoke. Police have made no arrests.

Peterman's father, Russell Peterman Sr., and two others barely escaped serious injury as two shooters emerged from the side of the home and opened fire from about a dozen feet away, said Det. Lt. Gerard Pelkofsky, head of the Suffolk police Homicide Squad.

Peterman Sr., 50, of Middle Island, was stoic Wednesday as he described the shooting that left him with two graze wounds. "We're just sitting outside and I heard something that sounded like firecrackers," he said. "I felt a burning, and I turned around and saw my son with a hole in his head."

Suffolk police said Peterman Jr. was a member of the Crips gang, as is one of the wounded men, Peterman's cousin, Ariel Perez, 21, of Wyandanch. He was grazed in the abdomen. Another Peterman cousin, Cordel Pointer, 22, of Huntington Station, was shot in the right knee, police said. He has no known gang affiliation, police said.

It was the second time in just over month that Perez survived a shooting. Last month, he was shot several times outside another Huntington Station home, along with his girlfriend, who also was wounded.

Perez and Pointer took a taxi to the same hospital, police said. Their conditions were not clear Wednesday, though police said both are expected to recover.

Police said they are were looking into the possibility that the shooting was retaliation for a previous attack or attacks in Huntington Station.

"They approach and just start shooting," Pelkofsky said of the two male gunmen, who fled on foot."We don't believe there was any kind of interaction."

Peterman Sr., who called his son Russ, said his son grew up in Huntington and attended Huntington High School before dropping out in 2003. Peterman Jr. worked for Peterman's commercial property maintenance company until a car accident four months ago forced him to stop working, he said. sonth"Always cracking jokes.. And he liked to wear different sneakers every day."

On Aug. 4, Perez was outside a Church Street home in Huntington Station, several blocks from Tuesday's shooting when someone opened fire, wounding him and his girlfriend. Suffolk police arrested Tarodney Sanders, 34, of Wyandanch, on Aug. 24 and charged him with attempted murder and weapons charges in that shooting. He has pleaded not guilty and is being held without bail. Tarodney Sanders is the brother of Robert "Bobby" Sanders, 27, who was fatally shot in Huntington Station on July 5.

With Sophia Chang