Two men arrested, face felony charges in last week’s Flanders home invasion
Two men are facing a slew of charges — including felony robbery, burglary, and conspiracy — in connection with a home invasion in Flanders last week after they were arrested Monday, according to a Southampton Town police press release.
One of the men led police on a drunken car chase through Hampton Bays before he was arrested, causing a crash that seriously injured a bystander. He later hurt a police officer while resisting arrest, according to the press release.
Police said they arrested 27-year-old Charles M. Schruggs of Riverhead and 28-year-old Roy Jones Jr. of Shirley for breaking into an occupied home on Flanders Road around 1:10 a.m. last Tuesday and robbing its residents.
Police initially reported that three armed men entered the home “brandishing a box cutter, a silver handgun and a shotgun.” The men took more than $1,000. The men had tried breaking into another home on Albany Avenue earlier, but failed, police said.
Mr. Schruggs was arrested Monday without incident and charged with first-degree robbery, first-degree burglary and fourth-degree conspiracy, all felonies, police said.
But when police tried to arrest Mr. Jones at the UA Theater in Hampton Bays, he fled the scene in a 2011 Hyundai Sonata. He drove south on Springville Road, but less than two blocks away, he “caused a motor vehicle crash and the serious injury of a 23-year-old Hampton Bays woman,” the release stated.
He then fled on foot and fought with police once they caught up with him, according to the press release. One officer was injured and required hospital treatment, but was later released in stable condition, police said.
Mr. Jones was arrested and taken to Peconic Bay Medical Center for treatment of the injuries he sustained in the crash. At his bedside, he was arraigned on felony first-degree robbery, first-degree burglary and fourth-degree conspiracy charges, as well as felony assault on a police officer, felony leaving the scene of an accident with a serious physical injury, unlawfully fleeing a police officer, misdemeanor third-degree aggravated unlicensed driving, driving while intoxicated, resisting arrest and obstruction of governmental administration.
Police did not report an arrest of the third suspect.
The home invasion and subsequent arrests come in the wake of a series of dozens of car break-ins over the past few months, though police previously said no evidence connects the crimes.
