Police investigate fatal shooting after domestic call in Riverhead

Suffolk County Police Homicide Squad detectives and the New York State Attorney General’s Office of Special Investigation are examining the fatal police shooting of Steven Eastwood, 28, after Southampton Town officers responded to a domestic emergency on Topping Drive in Northampton on Mother’s Day.

Police said the call came in at about 2:43 p.m. on May 10, 2026, about an escalating violent situation at a house that had a Riverhead mailing address but sat in Northampton, within Southampton Town Police jurisdiction. According to the Attorney General’s Office, officers found Eastwood allegedly stabbing his mother with a knife and repeatedly ordered him to drop it. Two officers fired their service weapons, and Eastwood was pronounced dead at the scene. Officers recovered several knives.

The woman was rushed to Stony Brook University Hospital for emergency treatment. Later reporting said she suffered more than 40 apparent stab and slash wounds. Three Southampton Town Police officers were also taken to a hospital for evaluation and were treated and released.

The Attorney General’s Office opened its investigation on May 11, adding a state-level review to the local police inquiry already underway. The case now sits at the intersection of a domestic violence response and a police use-of-force review, with investigators expected to piece together the sequence of events inside the home and on Topping Drive before any public findings are released.

Southampton Town Police Chief James Kiernan called the encounter an “extremely difficult and violent incident,” a description that reflects the scale of the emergency as officers moved into a fast-moving confrontation in a quiet residential area of Suffolk County. The location, just a short distance from Riverhead by mailing address but firmly inside Southampton Town’s policing area, has made the case a subject of close attention across eastern Long Island.