100 RESIDENTS MEET ON SHOOTING

Police Reiterate Colon's Death Accidental; Some Seek More Info

With some residents still mistrustful about the fatal shooting of a young
man by a Suffolk police officer during a drug raid in Bellport last month,
department officials publicly reiterated the shooting was accidental.

More than 100 residents filled the Frank P. Long Intermediate School
cafeteria for a two-hour meeting Wednesday evening that was by turns
cordial and emotionally taut.

"People have a right to know how it happened in our neighborhood," said
Kathleen Seaton, whose son Jose Colon, 20, was killed when he was shot once
in the head during the April 19 raid at a house he was visiting.

Seaton, who organized the meeting and has initiated a wrongful death suit
against Suffolk County, has otherwise retreated from publicly commenting.

Turning to officers from behind a lectern, however, she asked when she
would receive a comprehensive report of their investigation.

Homicide Commander Det. Lt. Jack Fitzpatrick said his squad would complete
its investigation within several weeks, and called it too important "to
rush to the point where something gets overlooked."

Some residents questioned what they described as overly aggressive tactics
used for a raid on a house where only marijuana was suspected of being
sold. More than 8 ounces of marijuana and a loaded rifle were seized from
the house.

Fitzpatrick and Det. Wes Daily said, however, that police were responding
to a house many in the community complained was a scourge, and a location
investigators believed contained loaded weapons.

During the meeting, police again laid out the tragic beginning of the raid.
Colon was struck after exiting the house when a lead officer discharged his
weapon after being pushed from behind by another officer who was carrying a
battering ram and tripped over a tree root.

Two witnesses disputed that account, saying police were stopped, and the
officer who fired the fatal shot wasn't bumped.

"I'm trying to process it and it still doesn't make sense," Colon's aunt,
Ana Maldonado of Bay Shore, said.

"We wish it hadn't happened," Chief of Patrol Thomas Compitello replied.

"Yeah," Maldonado said, "but it did."