Friendly fire killed ATF agent, Man suffers injury after fall from Paramount balcony, Snow heading for LI & other news stories for January 4th, 2012

LongIsland.com

Man Falls From Paramount's Balcony; Friendly Fire to Blame for Slain Agent; Is Snow Heading Our Way?; Two Rob Bellmore Gas Station, Pistol-Whip Attendant; Man Arrested in NYC, Elmont Firebombing Amidst New Year’s Eve celebration ...

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Man Falls From Paramount’s Balcony

Amidst New Year’s Eve celebration at the Paramount in Huntington Ryan Cleary, 23, of East Northport, took a dive from a second floor balcony inside the theater. The incident, where in Clearly fell 15 feet from the balcony and broke his neck around 1am, “appears to be non-criminal,” a police spokesman said. His condition is improving and reported as stable at Stony Brook University Medical Center.

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Friendly Fire to Blame for Slain Agent

Off-duty federal agent, John Capano, was shot Saturday after confronting James McGoey outside of the pharmacy McGoey had just robbed. Law enforcement officials believe that the fatal shot that killed Capano came from the gun of a retired Nassau County police lieutenant who runs a nearby deli and responded to the scene after a witness alerted him to the robbery.  Another responding officer, an off-duty NYPD officer, shot and killed McGoey as he tried to flee. This appears to be the second friendly-fire in Nassau County in the last year. A plain-clothed Nassau County officer was shot to death by a transit authority worker in March in Massapequa Park. This also marks the second deadly holdup in pharmacy on Long Island in 2011. A gunman opened fire in a Medford drugstore in June, killing two employees and two customers before fleeing with a backpack full of painkillers. James McGoey had four prior robbery convictions and had been released from jail in August 2010.

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Is Snow Heading Our Way?

The National Weather Service is reporting current weather conditions on the Island as “blustery” and are predicting wind gusts up to 32mph. The chilly weather is a result of an arctic cold front hitting the Northeast and affecting states as far as Florida. Temperatures on Long Island will be dropping into the teens after midnight with a wind chill falling to around zero, though meteorologists are predicting that this cold front will be short lived as temperatures will be climbing to a high of 51 degrees on Saturday.

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Two Rob Bellmore Gas Station, Pistol-Whip Attendant

A 21-year-old BP gas station attendant was pistol whipped as two men robbed the station on Merrick Road in Bellmore around 1:15am. Nassau County police say two black males approached the victim in the gas station and while one of the suspects displayed a black handgun and demanded money the other suspect guarded the door. The man with the gun proceeded to pistol-whip the victim then raid the cash register, taking an unknown amount of cash and five packs of cigarettes. Police are asking anyone with information regarding the incident to call Crimes Stoppers at 1-800-244-TIPS.

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Man Arrested in NYC, Elmont Firebombing

A Queens man has been arrested in connection to a string of firebomb attacks on an Islamic cultural center, convenience store, and three homes. He claims to have had personal grievances with all five locations. Ray Lazier Lengend, 40, claims his crude firebombs were used as retaliation against the Islamic center in part because he wasn’t allowed to use their bathrooms. Lengend was reportedly caught trying to steal glass Starbucks Frappuccino bottles and milk at the convenience store on December 27th and witnesses say Lengend made threats as he was escorted out. Four of the five firebombs thrown were made from glass Starbucks bottles, the last likely was made from a beer bottle.  The first attack was made at the convenience store around 8pm and although the bomb did not explode, gasoline did leak out and a small fire was started. Approximately ten minutes later a bottle smashed through the window at a nearby home causing the curtains to catch fire and badly damaging the home. Lengend appearantly thought the home to be that of a drug dealer. Police say he had the right street but the wrong address. The family of five was innocent. About a half hour later Lengend hurled two of the bombs at the Islamic center, the Imam Al-Khoei Foundation and then at 9:15pm an Elmont resident, a relative of Lengend, reported a possible firebombing. He heard the shattering of glass, smelled gasoline and found a broken glass bottle on his porch. Shortly after 10pm two bottle were thrown at a house that was used for Hindu worship services. The bottle didn’t explode once again but caused a small fire on the lawn. Authorities found three empty Frappuccino bottles in the backseat of the stolen Buick Lengend used as transportation.  Using surveillance video and eyewitness descriptions of the attacker authorities stacked the car and arrested the man fitting the descriptions as he attempted to get into the car Tuesday morning.

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