Speaking at times in a female falsetto or identifying himself as the European discoverer of the New World, a Mastic man called 911 hundreds of times in recent weeks to make phony reports of everything from car crashes to major explosions, according to Suffolk police.
In a police interview after his Monday arrest, Michael Salino, 37, admitted making up the imagined emergencies because "he was bored and enjoyed the conversation, going back and forth with the operators," said Lt. Timothy Dillon of the Seventh Precinct Crime Section.
The false reports began Aug. 31 when Suffolk police and medical personnel rushed to Portion Road in Farmingville after a 911 alert of a man stabbed there by his wife. They found nothing and no one, Dillon said.
Two days later, officers sent to Montauk Highway in Shirley found no trace of the woman who told a 911 operator she'd been assaulted there by another woman, even offering a description of her attacker's red shirt and white sneakers.
In an escalating series of calls that totaled about 300, the caller reported domestic fights, fires, armed robberies, explosions, car crashes and hit-and-runs, police said. At times, he spoke quietly and gave a female name. Once, the caller identified himself as Christopher Columbus.
Salino was arrested hours after he made a 911 call from a pay phone in Shirley late Monday morning "basically stating he was the guy making all the calls," Dillon said.
Seventh Precinct officers saw him as he fled the area on a bike; interviews at nearby businesses yielded a tentative identification, Dillon said. Salino was arrested Monday after Crime Section officers pretending to be a friend called him and lured him back to the William Floyd Parkway with the promise of work.
Salino was charged with six felonies and 25 misdemeanors, all for false reporting. He was arraigned Tuesday in First District Court in Central Islip, where a judge ordered him to undergo a psychological evaluation, and released on his own recognizance. He is due back in court Nov. 23. Attempts to contact Salino and family members were not successful.
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Originally Posted by NIKV69
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