The Edgartown man accused of threatening to “vaporize” police officers at the Steamship Authority terminal last week has been sent to the mainland for a mental health evaluation. 

David Capato, 56, was arraigned Thursday in Edgartown District Court on several charges after he told police he planned to set off explosives in his vehicle parked outside of the ferry terminal on Jan. 16.

After being held without bail, the Dukes County Sheriff’s Office transferred him to Bridgewater State Hospital for the evaluation, Mr. Capato’s attorney Robert Moriarty said this week. Because he was not on Island Tuesday, Mr. Capato’s scheduled hearing to consider bail was postponed.

Dukes County Sheriff Robert Ogden did not respond to a request for comment Tuesday. 

David Capato at his initial court appearance. — Ethan Genter

Tisbury police took Mr. Capato into custody around 11:30 p.m. on Jan. 16, after a two-hour standoff at the terminal. Police say Mr. Capato called the police himself, telling them he found an unloaded gun. 

When police arrived, Mr. Capato put the firearm in a blue USPS mailbox near the terminal and retreated to his vehicle, according to police reports. There he became uncooperative, and told police he had explosives in his vehicle, and would set them off if officers came closer. 

Mr. Capato was a longtime New York City police officer, records show, and he told Tisbury police that he had experience with the disposal of explosive ordinances, so he knew what he was doing.

Mr. Capato retired from the New York City force in 2011, according to a NYPD spokesperson.

Mr. Capato has owned a home in Edgartown since 2013 and appears to have been a regular visitor before that. According to his wedding announcement, he was married at the Federated Church in Edgartown in 2009. He had met his wife in town five years earlier at a clambake. 

Before coming to the Vineyard, Mr. Capato had been a lifelong resident of New York, attending the Trinity School in Manhattan and the Brooklyn Technical High School before entering the New York City police academy, the wedding announcement read. He worked on the force for almost 20 years, and held the rank of sergeant in the intelligence division.

Tisbury police said Mr. Capato had a disassembled AR-15-style rifle in his vehicle at the time of the standoff, as well as bags of wood pellets and a can of gasoline. He also had several phones and laptops in the vehicles, and was wearing a body camera, according to police. 

There were no previous criminal court records for Mr. Capato in Edgartown, and his lawyer said the standoff with police was due to a mental illness and other factors. 

“My preliminary investigation, which is still in its infancy, has revealed that Mr. Capato’s actions at the Steamship Authority were the product of human frailty and mental illness and not deliberate malice or genuine evil,” Mr. Moriarty wrote in a statement. “Multiple friends of his have reached out to me to see what they can do to help and to offer information on what got him to this point. It’s quite clear that when this happened Mr. Capato was not in his right mind, which is supported by his decades of past service to the New York Police Department and the fact that he has no prior criminal record.”

Mr. Capato, according to a Tisbury police report, is unemployed, but did apparently look for a job on the Island. In 2022, Mr. Capato applied to be a Chilmark police officer and had an interview with the up-Island department that spring, according to Chief Sean Slavin. He was not offered a position, the chief said. 

Mr. Capato is scheduled to appear before the district court again on Feb. 14 for a dangerousness hearing to determine his bail.