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Police are investigating a shooting at a North Sea party that sent three victims to the hospital.
Shots were fired “in rapid succession, like an automatic weapon,” one neighbor of a home on Long Springs Road in Southampton said, leaving three people injured early Tuesday morning.
With the investigation still underway, Chief Steven Skrynecki said Wednesday morning that there’s a suggestion that gang activity may have been a characteristic of the early morning shooting in the North Sea neighborhood. He declined to explain further.
Police have learned the party was attended by approximately 40 predominantly male individuals in their 20s. There were six to eight dancers, the chief said, adding that there was evidence of alcohol and marijuana use. Some attendees were armed, he said.
Investigators took close to 24 hours to process the scene, having obtained a search warrant. The chief said a “significant number” of rounds were fired into the house from outdoors, and evidence suggests that shots were fired inside the home as well.
Guests began to arrive for the party at around 10 p.m. Monday night, the chief said.
Neighbors, who spoke on condition of anonymity, reported that the house, owned since last September by Christopher and Tatyana Esposito of Jericho, has been an online vacation rental, with “a whole bunch of different people” staying there on weekends throughout the summer and into the winter.
Police said the single-night rental was through the Vrbo platform. According to Chief Skrynecki, his department had never received any previous calls to the location or noise complaints.
On Monday night, neighbors heard blaring music and voices raised in revelry. It was described as “a very loud scene” by one neighbor. But observers didn’t hear shouting or fighting, or see signs of anything untoward — until the shooting began.
At around 2:30 a.m., police received multiple 911 calls. Some neighbors simply complained of a loud party, while others alerted police to the shooting.
Some of those who called were at the party, in the house, including one woman who called from a closet where she was hiding.
“We were on the scene in three minutes,” Chief Skrynecki said. A witness said that as the first patrol car pulled into the driveway, about a half dozen speeding vehicles passed it heading away from the shooting scene. The chief said officers were able to stop some of the fleeing partygoers.
Police learned that the three gunshot victims had driven themselves to the hospital. A 22-year-old woman from Elmont and a 26-year-old man whose hometown was not released were both treated at a local hospital. A third victim, a 26-year-old man from Huntington Station, was treated locally, then transferred to Stony Brook University Hospital for further treatment. As of Wednesday morning, all were in stable condition, the chief said.
Detectives and a State Police K9 unit responded to the scene to search for a shooter, but the search was unsuccessful.
“Investigators are actively working to gather more information surrounding the rental and circumstances of the incident,” Lieutenant Sue Ralph said Tuesday morning.
Reached for comment, the owner of the house, Christopher Esposito, declined to weigh in. However, the chief said he was cooperating with the investigation.
In the Town of Southampton, it’s illegal to rent out a house for any timeframe shorter than two weeks. Last April, members of the town’s code enforcement division, required by state COVID-19 shutdown mandates to work from home, undertook a search of the internet and found over 100 homes that either advertised for such illegal, transient rentals, or failed to comply with town regulations regarding rental adverts.
The Esposito house is located on a flag lot in a North Sea neighborhood known as Hampton Park, near Water Mill. It sits on 1.25 acres and lists rentals at $15,000 for the month of April, $33,000 for June, and $120,000 for Memorial Day to Labor Day.
The 2,480-square-foot, six-bedroom house boasts a fire pit, pool and basketball court. The house is listed on the rental platform Vrbo, where houses in the area run around $1,000 per night, even offseason.
Shootings are a rarity in Southampton Town. Last year, a couple were killed in Hampton Bays in a firearm accident. In 2016, Southampton Village Police investigated a drive-by shooting near Hillcrest Avenue. And in 2012, a pair of baymen complained they were shot at while harvesting shellfish near the Shinnecock Reservation.
