A man crept into a West Drive backyard in North Massapequa at 2 a.m. on August 2 and spent several minutes trying to force and pick open a garage door lock before giving up and walking off into the dark, according to Nassau County Police. He never got inside. After the failed attempts, he wandered around the property before fleeing the scene entirely, leaving investigators with only a photo and a case number to work with.
The department shared images of the unidentified man in a wanted post on Thursday, seeking the public's help identifying him, according to the Nassau County Police Department. The post lists the incident under reference case number 2026CR376969 and labels the suspect wanted for criminal trespass. Anyone who recognizes the man is asked to contact NCPD's 8th Squad directly at 516-573-6800.
The case falls under the jurisdiction of the Nassau County Police Department's Eighth Precinct, which is headquartered in Bethpage and handles patrol and detective work across North Massapequa along with neighboring communities including Farmingdale, Levittown, Hicksville, and Wantagh, per the Nassau County Police Department. The precinct's territory runs north of the Southern State Parkway to Old Country Road and east to the Suffolk County border. Countywide operations are directed out of police headquarters in Mineola, which coordinates specialized investigative squads across eight precincts serving more than 1.3 million residents, according to the Town of Oyster Bay.
What Criminal Trespass Actually Means Under New York Law
As it stands, the man is wanted only for criminal trespass, a charge that does not require prosecutors to prove he intended to commit a crime once inside. Under New York Penal Law § 140.10, third-degree criminal trespass is a Class B misdemeanor that applies when someone knowingly enters or remains unlawfully on property that is fenced or enclosed to keep intruders out, per Hacker Murphy LLP.
That could change depending on what investigators ultimately determine about intent. New York Penal Law § 140.20 defines third-degree burglary as unlawfully entering or remaining inside a building — a legal category that includes detached garages and sheds — with intent to commit a crime inside, a Class D felony punishable by up to seven years in prison, according to Hacker Murphy LLP. Whether the man's attempts to pick the lock would meet that higher bar has not been addressed in the police notice, which currently seeks him only on the misdemeanor trespass charge.
A Street With a History of Police Activity
West Drive is no stranger to Nassau police response. The same street was the scene of a deadly house party shooting on July 4, 2020, when a late-night gathering ended with a 21-year-old man dead and two others injured, a case that later resulted in a murder conviction for a Brooklyn gunman, as reported by CBS News. Years earlier, in September 2019, Nassau County Police officers and probation officers conducted a night check at a West Drive residence and arrested an 18-year-old resident after finding two loaded illegal handguns with over-capacity magazines, according to Patch.
North Massapequa itself is an unincorporated hamlet within the Town of Oyster Bay, home to 17,829 residents as of the 2020 U.S. Census, per Wikipedia. Because the hamlet has no local municipal government or village police force of its own, it relies entirely on Nassau County agencies for public safety, a structure shared across the Town of Oyster Bay's 36 hamlets and villages and more than 300,000 residents.
How to Report a Tip
Nassau County Crime Stoppers is accepting anonymous tips in the case and is offering reward money — up to $5,000 for information leading to an arrest in unsolved Nassau County crimes, according to Nassau County Crime Stoppers. Tipsters can call 1-800-244-TIPS or send NCPD a direct message. The nonprofit organization operates in coordination with the Nassau County Police Department.
It remains unknown whether the man was captured on surveillance footage from neighboring homes or whether he left behind any tools during his attempts on the lock. Nassau police have not said whether similar attempted break-ins have been reported elsewhere in North Massapequa or the surrounding Eighth Precinct area in recent weeks. For now, investigators are relying on the public to put a name to the face in the photos.
