By Michelle O’donnell And Janon Fisher, The New York Times
AMITYVILLE, N.Y. -- In this quaint village on the South Shore of Long Island where Victorian houses gracefully coexist with boxy ranch newcomers, friends and strangers paused in the stifling heat long enough yesterday to ask a simple question: How?
A village scarred enough by Sept. 11 to have its own 9/11 memorial beneath the railroad tracks that link it like an umbilical cord to Manhattan knew better than to ask why. But it had to ask how.
How could a man who survived two decades and one month as a police officer in New York City, 30 miles and a lifetime away, die patrolling Oak Beach, a sparse enclave of homes nestled in sand dunes with a serene view of Fire Island?
That was the question people struggled to answer, a day after the death of Richard L. Brooks, 44, a retired New York City police lieutenant who had for three years worked summers as a part-time bay constable for the Town of Babylon. Friday afternoon, Constable Brooks followed James T. Wilson to his home in Oak Beach, suspecting Wilson of drunken driving, the Suffolk County police said.
At his home, Wilson, 42, shot Constable Brooks from a second-floor window, the police said, and then he ran over the constable’s body with a sport utility vehicle as he attempted to flee. State Park Police officers stopped Wilson nearby and shot him after he brandished a weapon at them, the police said. He died a short while later.
A police spokeswoman said the investigation was continuing.
Constable Brooks lived for years in a Victorian house that he maintained beautifully under the railroad tracks in Amityville and moved a few years ago to a small ranch house on a canal, also in Amityville. Police cars staked out the ranch house yesterday to keep the curious away.
“I guess once you’re a cop, you would still do all the things you’re trained to do,” said Patti McDermott, a former neighbor of the constable’s parents. She paused in her driveway across the street from the small ranch house where Constable Brooks grew up. He must have felt he had to pull over a driver who he thought was drunk, she said.
Although the parents of Constable Brooks moved to Florida a few years ago, Ms. McDermott said she still saw him and his older brother, Peter, who both served with her husband in the village’s volunteer Fire Department. She last saw Richie, as she called him, at an Independence Day celebration in the village, “talking about how proud of his kids he was.”
The constable’s son, Richard, 18, who just graduated from St. Anthony’s High School in Huntington Station, began his college studies last week at the United States Naval Academy, Ms. McDermott said. His daughter, Lori, 14, just finished eighth grade and won several awards, Ms. McDermott said.
At the fire station, the chief, James Juliano, and three assistant chiefs stood in the beating sun, arms crossed on their chests, eyes hidden behind sunglasses. Chief Juliano said Constable Brooks had been a great man. He liked camping. He was a loving husband to his wife, Sylvia. He brought his kids everywhere, and he was a hoot of a storyteller.
In Oak Beach, neighbors tried to answer their own questions by recalling Wilson, an executive of a company that manufactures steel bars. Four years ago he bought and tore down a bungalow and replaced it with a bigger home, a neighbor said.
James H. Harding, the president of the homeowners association, said Wilson, who was married but had no children, had donated steel so a local playground could be built.
Neighbors said it was not unusual to see Wilson drink socially at local parties. One neighbor, Alice Coons, said he had been a bit of a hothead, but no one said they had known him to act violently.
“No one expected this would happen,” Gustav Coletti said as he pondered Wilson’s actions. “He must have snapped.”