Gun Club Could Have Been Safe With Better Maintenance, Police Chief Says

East Hampton Town Police Chief Michael Sarlo told Wainscott residents this past weekend that the safety infrastructure in place at the Maidstone Gun Club would have been sufficient to ensure that no bullets escaped the shooting range — had the facility been properly maintained and monitored.

Speaking to the members of the Wainscott Citizens Advisory Committee on Saturday morning, via Zoom, the veteran town officer also said that having a shooting range within the town’s borders for his officers to train on is a critical time-saver for officers who have to practice with their firearms and be recertified annually on two different types of guns.

“The safety upgrades that were made were sufficient,” Sarlo said of the baffles and shooting tunnels that were installed at the gun club’s 200-yard-long outdoor rifle range. “But over time, without a maintenance regimen, it deteriorated.”

He nodded to the investigation report filed by one of his own officers into the incident in August 2022, when at least two bullets fired by a high-powered rifle reached the backyard of a home off Merchants Path, about a mile from the range. That investigation, by Officer Luke McNamara, found evidence that bullets had passed through two timber baffles erected across the top of the range, intended to catch stray bullets that had deflected upward and out of the range.

But those baffles had been designed to have a steel interior panel between the timbers. Neither did, and McNamara said there was evidence of splintered wood from numerous bullets having passed through them.

McNamara also determined from security camera footage at the range and at the home where the bullets whizzed into the backyard — one impacting the side of the house while two workers on the property scrambled for cover — that the rounds had been fired by an inept shooter who was not following the club’s stated shooting procedures and requirements for the rifle range and was struggling to control the tactical weapon he was firing, which also may have had illegal modifications made to it.

The shooter had not been seated at the designated shooting benches, intended to keep shots fired level and down range, and had lost control of his rifle on multiple shots, causing them to deflect off the interior of the steel shooting tunnels that all shooters must fire through and which are intended to keep shots aimed down the range.

Having someone monitoring the shooting range and ensuring that all shooters follow all the proper safety protocols could have improved the safety of the range substantially as well, Sarlo said.

Residents also asked the chief why no charges were ever filed against the man who was shooting the gun irresponsibly. The plaintiffs in the lawsuit against the gun club have said that the man’s gun had appeared to have possibly been illegally modified in some way — perhaps making it capable of fully automatic firing — but that when officers went to his home and asked to inspect the gun, he refused to let them see it.

Sarlo said that without direct evidence of criminality, there was nothing that police could do.

The club’s rifle range was closed voluntarily following the August 2022 incident and the entire club facility — including the separate, dedicated police shooting range and training facilities on the property — have been off-limits since a judge granted a temporary restraining order to the owners of the home that was struck by the bullets, Roxana and Cristinel Pintilie. They and several of their neighbors have sued, asking a court to close down the shooting range permanently.

The gun club’s lease of the land it was built on in 1983, which is part of the East Hampton Airport property, is up for renewal next month, and Town Board members have already said that they will not renew it without “major changes” being made to the facility and its operating procedures.

Councilwoman Kathee Burke-Gonzalez said that she is strongly in support of a police shooting range remaining on the property.

Sarlo told the Wainscott residents that in the 10 months since the judge barred the use of the entire gun club facility, his officers have had to travel to Westhampton to use county shooting facilities there for training, practice and recertification on their assigned firearms.

With 68 full-time and five part-time officers needed to be recertified every year on the use of their sidearm pistols and the rifles that are kept in patrol cars, as well as practicing shooting, each officer must use the range at least two, and usually three, times per year. Additionally, the Emergency Services Unit — a regional specially trained tactical intervention team, similar to a SWAT team, comprising officers from East Hampton, Sag Harbor and Southampton — trains together one day each month.

“If we are sending people to Westhampton — they are not here,” Sarlo said, nodding to the dire situations the Emergency Services Unit responds to.

Sarlo said that the police range, which is entirely separate from all the Maidstone Gun Club members’ shooting areas, is maintained by the department and cleaned up after each use.

The Wainscott residents renewed their distaste for the club reopening and remaining on the town lands, with only a mild nod of recognition to the police range’s special circumstances.

“There’s a difference between a highly regulated and less used police range and a public outdoor shooting facility,” resident Barry Raebeck said. “In a residential area, with all the development that’s taken place in the last 30 years. I would think the police department would want to limit the use of guns rather than expand it.”