Shots Fired At Long Beach Party With Hundreds Of Grads: Police

LONG BEACH, NY — A planned "Sunset Party" featuring recent more than 2,000 high school graduates from throughout the area took a turn when shots were fired, Long Beach police said.

Police were on hand to provide crowd control had closed the boardwalk and Ocean Beach Park at 11 p.m. Sunday.

However, just after midnight, with the partygoers mostly dispersed, shots were fired in the vicinity of West Broadway and West Penn Street, police said.

Four men were stopped and three of them complied. Deandre Oates, 18, of Hempstead, was observed by police with a bulky item in his waistband. He fled over a chain-link fence to a nearby yard where he tossed an item that officers later discovered was a loaded firearm with a defaced serial number, the police news release said.

He was taken into custody on second- and third-degree criminal possession of a firearm. Another 18-year-old Tyreek Williams, of Hempstead, was charged with having an active arrest warrant.

The party included graduates from Baldwin High School, Freeport High School, Hempstead High School and Valley Stream High School. Students from high schools across the five borough also attended the "sunset party," police said.