By Courtney Dentch
A part-time student from Far Rockaway was arrested and charged with shooting a 22-year-old Jamaica man at a SUNY-Farmingdale dormitory Monday afternoon, Suffolk County police said.
The victim was in critical but stable condition.
The incident took place at Lehman Hall on the State University of New York at Farmingdale campus at about 3:30 p.m. Monday, police said. The victim, Anklav Dwyer, of 170-20 130th Ave., Jamaica, a former Farmingdale student, was shot once in the chest with a .38 caliber revolver, they said.
He was taken to Nassau University Medical Center in East Meadow, where he was in the Intensive Care Unit and listed in critical but stable condition Tuesday, a hospital spokeswoman said.
Curtis Agard, 21, of 223 Fernside Place in Far Rockaway, was accused of shooting Dwyer, police said. Agard, who is a part-time Farmingdale student, was charged with first-degree assault, second-degree criminal use of a firearm, and second-degree criminal possession of a weapon, the Suffolk County police said.
He was arraigned Feb. 26 and released on $30,000 cash bail, said a spokeswoman for the Suffolk County district attorney’s office. Agard is due back in court on March 1.
The shooting occurred after Dwyer went to Lehman Hall to confront Agard about an argument between the girlfriend of Dwyer’s brother and Agard’s girlfriend, according to the police. Dwyer found Agard in a friend’s second-floor dorm room and the two began to argue. Then Agard allegedly pulled out a revolver and shot Dwyer, before running upstairs to another dorm room, police said.
Agard was arrested in the fourth-floor room without a struggle, police said. They found a loaded .38 caliber revolver in the room, which police said they believed was used in the shooting.
The school has 5,400 students, 500 of whom live on campus, said Kathy Coley, director of communications for the school. Security measures, such as key-card access to dorms and residence life personnel watching entrances, are already in place, but they are not always effective, Coley said.
“In theory, only people who are supposed to be there are there,” she said. “Obviously, that’s not always the case.”
The college has had few violent incidents in the recent past, but it is providing increased security as well as counseling for students, Coley said.
“Our crime stats are very good,” she said. “We were a little surprised and saddened by this, and we will take action.”
The school is planning to increase State University Police on campus, drawing from other nearby campuses, Coley said. They are also looking at other preventative measures for residence halls, such as security cameras in common areas, panic buttons, grates on first floor windows, and possibly even metal detectors, Coley said.
“It’s not something we’d like to do, but we are considering it,” she said. “Our first concern is for the safety of our students.”
Reach reporter Courtney Dentch by e-mail at Timesledgr@aol.com or call 229-0300, Ext. 138.
