Recent muggings leave residents in Flanders neighborhood feeling uneasy

The 21-year-old man who showed up on James and Dorothy Konkel’s back deck had made his way past two barking dogs in the dark on the night of Sept. 8. Dorothy found him shaking and panting in a chair, pleading for help.

“He had to have been terrified to go through my back gate with two dogs surrounding him,” Dorothy said.

“He said, ‘They told me they were gonna kill me,'” said James.

The victim told police he was attacked by a group of five or six men who pushed him to the ground, punching him in the head and face. He was taken to Peconic Bay Medical Center with head and facial injuries. No property was reported stolen.

The man ended up on the Konkels’ deck after fleeing his attackers down Groves Drive, entering their Silverbrook Drive property through a rear entrance. He had turned down Cypress Avenue from Flanders Road.

“Everybody knows you don’t go on Cypress,” said Dorothy, who used to take walks in the neighborhood but no longer does. She and her husband, who have lived in their home for 47 years, described regular encounters with groups of young men standing in the middle of Cypress Avenue, who make no effort to make way for the Konkels’ cars as they try to pass. Two short blocks away, a group of young men stood haphazardly in the street in the area the Konkels spoke about, staring at cars as they passed.

The incident is one of several assaults reported in the area in recent months, according to Southampton Town Police.

On June 15, a female victim was struck on the head during an attempted robbery in the vicinity. A day later, a man reported to police that he was approached by three men as he entered his house on Groves Drive and was hit on the back of the head with an aluminum bat. He fell forward and suffered a laceration to his face, and the attackers took $130 and a blackberry cell phone from his pocket. On August 25, a man said he was walking home on Cypress Avenue from Cabana Latina, located across Flanders Road from the end of Cypress, when he was hit above the eye and fell to the ground. Someone took his wallet, which contained $7,000 in cash, and two checks totaling $340.

Groves Drive resident Todd Ryan, Chief of the Flanders Fire Department, said he and his neighbors wonder how many more incidents have gone unreported. The victims he’s met have tended to be undocumented immigrants, some of them afraid to go to the police. Detective Sergeant Lisa Costa said because these individuals don’t have Social Security numbers, they can’t open bank accounts and often carry their money on them.

Costa said that of all the victims, one was able to provide only a basic description. She said the incidents are being looked into as being related, though there has not been any definitive proof they are.

Ryan and the Konkels said they are frustrated by a lack of police presence in their neighborhood. Ryan said he blames management and doesn’t understand why more patrols aren’t sent to the area.

James Konkel said his dogs provide some security, but one is getting old.

“I’m thinking about getting another one,” he said.

RiverheadLOCAL photo by Micah Danney

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