Parolee killed after Farmingville bar brawl
This is an undated photo of Randell Hollman, who was shot in the torso shortly after 3 a.m. outside the Empire Bar and Lounge on Warren Avenue, authorities said. Credit: Handout
Vicky Hollman wishes her 25-year-old son Randell were still in prison.
But the Mastic Beach man, paroled three months ago on a drug-dealing charge, was gunned down around 3 a.m. Saturday at a Farmingville bar after a brawl over his girlfriend escalated. He was out in the middle of the night despite his parole-imposed curfew, Vicky Hollman said.
"I don't want to see my son in jail, but if he was still in jail, he'd still be alive," said Vicky Hollman, 57, who makes a living driving a bus and managing a home for people with cerebral palsy.
She said he repeatedly violated his parole terms -- breaking curfew, smoking marijuana -- but his parole was never revoked. Records show that Hollman, who has a rap sheet for assault, menacing, reckless endangerment and choking, was freed in November from the Franklin Correctional Facility.
The state parole agency couldn't be reached for comment.
"He made his mistakes but he was a good guy," said close family friend Sallie McCullough, 63, of Brentwood, a bus aide.
Saturday, Randell, a father of three, ages 8, 5, and 1, was shot in the torso outside Empire Bar and Lounge on Warren Avenue. He died at Brookhaven Memorial Hospital Medical Center in East Patchogue.
The fight began, family said, because the girlfriend was talking to other men. Cops responding to the scene found a crowd of 50 to 100 brawling.
In her living room later in the day, the mother broke into tears as a newscast reported on her son's death. Her living room, hosting a steady stream of mourners, grew silent. Only her raw grief was audible -- sobs broken by the squeals of two of her son's three children, girl Rannasia, 8, and boy Randell Jr., 5. They're too young to fully understand what had happened, the family said.
The Hollmans recalled a "mama's boy" who always told his mother he loved her.
"When I'd come home from work, he'd always come in here and see me and kiss me and ask me how my day was," she said. "Every single day. No matter what time I got here, he was here when I got home. And now I won't see him anymore . . . . He won't tell me he love me" again.
Police had not made any arrests as of last night.
With Robert Brodsky
