MTV party turns ugly

[heynow]

MTV party turns ugly

Bust 4 in Hamptons melee

By TRACY CONNOR

DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

The MTV house in Hampton Bays.

A group of hip-hop fans invited to hang out at MTV's beach house in the Hamptons was jolted back to the real world - busted for a wild melee at a nearby club.

Four young men were arraigned yesterday in Southampton Town Court on charges ranging from assault to robbery for the Tuesday afternoon brawl at Summers Beach Club.

One person was badly hurt in the fracas, and it took cops from three different departments to restore order at the popular party spot in East Quogue.

"There were 100 to 120 people involved in various fights," said Detective Sgt. Randolph Hintze of the Southampton Town Police.

He described the atmosphere as "very tense" and said that had cops not arrived so quickly, things could have exploded.

"It really got out of control," said Kareem Sharpe, 19, one of the men arrested. "It started with a lot of drinking, then play-fighting and it went from there."

The clash happened after MTV bused dozens of its viewers from the Smithhaven Mall in Lake Grove to its beach house on Dune Road in East Quogue.

They were recruited to be audience members for the "Direct Effect" show, a daily countdown of hip-hop video requests.

Fists fly

Some recruits apparently didn't want their MTV, and headed down the road to Summers Beach Club, a waterfront watering hole crowded with regulars.

The MTV crowd became "aggressive and confrontational" with Summers staff and customers and the "combative atmosphere" sparked a series of fistfights, police said.

Southampton cops rushed to the scene and called in backup from the Quogue Village police and state police.

In the chaos, one bloodied victim just wandered away, and cops were only able to identify four suspects, Hintze said.

Sharpe, a stock clerk from Brentwood, said he wasn't even at Summers. He was heading back to the bus at the end of the taping when trouble started.

"I saw everyone running and then I saw a black kid get hit on the head with a bottle and he fell and everyone was kicking him," he said.

Out on bail

Sharpe said he stepped in and got into a confrontation with a man who turned out to be an off-duty cop trying to break up the free-for-all.

"I hit him. I didn't even know he was a police officer," said Sharpe, who was charged with assault and released on $250 bail.

David Callender, 24, of Farmingville, also was accused of assaulting the off-duty cop and stealing from a tip jar.

Pandelis Theodosiou, 21, of Port Jefferson allegedly swiped a bottle of rum and threatened the club owner. Police said he fled and hid on one of the buses when cops tried to arrest him.

The fourth person arrested was Greg Romine, 22, of South Setauket, for interfering with another arrest. After he was busted, police found he had a warrant for an unpaid fine.

A 24-year-old man, whose name was not released, was treated at Central Suffolk Hospital for cuts and bruises on the head, officials said.

In a statement, MTV said only that it was cooperating with the investigation. The club did not return phone calls.

Originally published on June 26, 2003

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LEFT

[sfqueen]

Fucking animals.

[girly]

figures. it always the people that listen to hip hop causing shit like this

[Teknojunkee]

figures. it always the people that listen to hip hop causing shit like this

Holy Shit! Finally...someone who thinks like me!

Tek

[jaysea]

HOLY SHIT Her Tits are fucking Big,

omg.........WTF do u do with those, use them as flotaion devices

if only that bith was around during the Titantic, maybe she could of helped so many people,

[stdiamante]

ghetto

[darkfyre]

now now people, no need to lay down categorizations. a bunch of wayward youth at an mtv hiphop party dont exactly strike me as the creme de la creme of good society, but dance music lovers are denigrated just as often for being on drugs all the time. people that start conflict like this for no reason are just ghetto in general...