Long Beach man arrested for attempted murder

Police arrested a Long Beach resident on Tuesday and charged him with attempted murder after he allegedly shot a man in the chest just days after Hurricane Sandy.

According to police, the incident took place on Nov. 3 at 9:21 p.m. in the Channel Park Homes area. Police Commissioner Mike Tangney said that the suspect, 27-year-old Bradley Dennis approached Alan Rodriguez and shot him in the upper left part of his chest.

“They had some issues between them,” Tangney said, adding that the two were involved in a dispute over a girlfriend.

Rodriguez was transported to South Nassau Communities Hospital for treatment.

“He was discharged from the hospital relatively quickly after the incident and is expected to make a full recovery,” Tangney said.

Tangney added that Rodriguez had initially refused to cooperate with detectives during their investigation, but eventually agreed.

“Once we got the cooperation of the victim, [Dennis] was a known player to us and we went out looking for him and we picked him up,” Tangney said. “He knew that we were looking for him.”

Dennis, who Tangney said has prior arrests, was apprehended at around 12:30 p.m. on Tuesday in the Sycamore Court parking lot of the Channel Park Homes, where he was arrested and charged with attempted murder.

Dennis was arraigned in Long Beach City Court on Wednesday by Judge Frank Dikranis and is being held without bail. He is scheduled to appear in Nassau County Criminal Court on Jan. 15.

Tangney said that the shooting occurred at a time when the Police Department was focused on its emergency response in the aftermath of the hurricane, as it instituted a curfew and fears of looting among residents grew.

“Normally, that’s the type of story we would get out [quickly] but it just was not prudent to take time away from all the other operations in order to get that information out,” he said. “We also didn’t want to panic the community, because this was an associated grudge and it was not a random shooting.”