A Long Island man has been sentenced to 30 years in prison for a 2023 Freeport bar shooting that left the 23-year-old father of a young girl paralyzed from the neck down, officials said Wednesday.
Tiray Clemmons, 34, of Hempstead, was accused of opening fire on a crowd at a bar in Freeport in the summer of 2023.
He was arrested shortly after the incident on charges of attempted murder, assault and multiple weapon-related offenses.
Earlier this year, Clemmons was convicted on all counts after a Nassau County jury deliberated for less than five hours, prosecutors said.
On Wednesday, he was sentenced to 30 years in prison, followed by five years of post-release supervision, Nassau County District Attorney Anne T. Donnelly said.
The violent incident unfolded on the evening of July 12, 2023. According to prosecutors, Clemmons became “furious” after he was thrown out of Agua on the Mile, a popular bar on Freeport’s Nautical Mile, and was later denied re-entry.
He then shot at a crowd because he wanted “payback.” He fired six rounds from a .357, striking the security guard in the back and severely damaging his spinal cord.
Another bystander was hit twice — in the neck and scrotum — and also required hospitalization, prosecutors said.
The firearm used in the shooting was recovered four days later in the Woodcleft Canal, located behind the bar, .
“Tiray Clemmons was angry that he was kicked out of a bar, and he turned to wanton violence,” Donnelly said in a statement. Instead of going home to “lick his wounds,” he decided to pick up a gun and start shooting.
While firing into the crowded bar, Clemmons “targeted the security guard who kept him out,” Donnelly added. “Because of his malice and brutality, an innocent man is now cruelly denied the chance to ever hold his 3-year-old daughter again.”
