Port Jefferson Station man pleads not guilty in fatal shooting

A 19-year-old Port Jefferson Station man faces a murder charge in the shooting death of a Shirley man in broad daylight on Main Street in Port Jefferson on Wednesday, Suffolk County police said Saturday.

Joseph Garcia of Market Street was arrested on Saturday and charged with second-degree murder in the death of David Bliss, 25, police said.

Garcia was ordered held without bail during his arraignment at First District Court in Central Islip on Sunday. He entered a not guilty plea and his attorney, George Dunan of Islip Terrace, said Garcia maintains his innocence.

The shooting occurred on Wednesday when the two men were in an argument on Main Street near West Broadway, police and village Mayor Margot Garant said this week. Garcia shot Bliss and drove away. Bliss was taken to St. Charles Hospital in Port Jefferson, where he was pronounced dead, police said.

Garant said on Thursday Bliss was seen on video pulling a knife on the suspect shortly before he was shot. The video showed Bliss cowering behind a telephone pole, and then pulling a knife when the suspect approached him, according to Garant. The suspect retrieved a gun from his car, then shot Bliss before driving away.

The last fatal shooting in the four-square-mile village of about 9,700 residents occurred in October 2019, also on Main Street, not far from Wednesday’s shooting.

Port Jefferson resident Theodore Scoville, 50, was fatally shot by the owner of an East Main Street liquor store, police said at the time.

The 2019 shooting was a "clear case of self-defense," police said. Scoville walked into the store and swung a samurai sword at a close distance to the store owner who then fired a single shot, police said.

With Michael O'Keeffe