The events range from fundraisers for Superstorm Sandy survivors and family events for the kids to local bars and restaurants offering specials on burritos, margaritas and Coronas—so break out that souvenir sombrero from Cancun.

But, before leaving the house in a poncho, here’s a quick North American history refresher lesson:  Cinco de Mayo is not—like some people mistakenly believe—Mexican Independence Day, which is Sept.16.

The holiday commemorates the Battle of Puebla, when Mexican forces turned back invading French troops in 1862—a symbol of resiliency for the world’s most populous Spanish-speaking nation.

And for those who still remember their high school Spanish 101, here’s a potentially useful bonus factoid—a Mexican saying that may come in handy on the Long Island Rail Road this weekend: “A boca de borracho, oídos de cantinero.”

It translates to “the mouth of drunk, ears of barman.” It basically means ignore the loud drunks.

Saturday
10 a.m.-5 p.m., Cinco de Mayo Dive Meet, Nassau County Aquatic Center, Eisenhower Park, East Meadow, 516-572-0501.

2-4 p.m., Cinco de Mayo at the Long Island Children’s Museum, 11 Davis Ave., Garden City, 516-224-5800.

Cinco de Mayo Kickoff Party, Napper Tandy’s Irish Pub, 275 Rte 25A, Miller Place, 631-331-5454. $4 Coronas and margaritas.

May 4-5: Cinco de Mayo Weekend at The Nutty Irishman. 323 Main St. Farmingdale. 516-293-9700. $4 Coronas, 8-10 p.m.

Sunday
11 a.m.-2 p.m., Cinco de Mayo Festival at the Garden of Eve Organic Farm & Market. 4558 Sound Ave, Aquebogue, 631-523-6608

11 a.m.-2 p.m., Cinco de Mayo at the Long Island Game Farm Wildlife Park. 638 Chapman Blvd, Manorville, 631-878-6644. www.longislandgamefarm.com

12-2:30 p.m. or 3-5:30 p.m., Cinco de Mayo Fiesta Kid’s Fun Skate. United Skates of America, 1276 Hicksville Rd. Seaford, 516-795-5474.

2 p.m., Cinco de Mayo: Serenata Mexicana. The Suffolk Theater, 118 E. Main St. Riverhead, 631- 727-4343. $35.

2-3 p.m., Latin Music. Long Island Museum of American Art, History and Carriages, 1200 Route 25A  Stony Brook, 631-751-0066

2-5 p.m., Mambo Loco at Martha Clara Vineyards. 6025 Sound Ave. Riverhead, 631-298-0075

3-8 p.m., Cinco de Mayo Party, Sandy survivor fundraiser, Knights of Columbus, 2333 Bellmore Ave., Bellmore, 516-785-9407. $40.

3-9 p.m., Cinco de Mayo at Pefecto Mundo Latin Bistro. 1141-1 Jericho Turnpike, Commack, 631-864-2777.

10 p.m.-12 a.m., Cinco de Mayo at Lily Flanagan’s Pub. 345 Deer Park Ave., Babylon, 631-539-0816

Cinco de Mayo Party at Dublin Deck. 325 River Ave, Patchogue, 631-207-0370.

Cinco de Moe’s at Moe’s Southwest Grill, multiple locations. Homewrecker burrito, chips and salsa for $5 and bobblehead Cinco de Moe’s collector’s cups.

Margaritas and Fajitas at Cozymel’s Mexican Grill, 1177 Corporate Dr., Westbury.11 a.m.-12 a.m.

Buy two tacos get one free at Chico’s Tex-Mex Restaurant, 18 Berryhill Rd., Syosset, 516-802-3500. 11 a.m.-11 p.m.

$2 tacos, $5 nacho platters, $3 beers and $4 margaritas and sangrias at Swell Taco, 135 Deer Park Ave., Babylon, 631-482-1299. 12-4 p.m.

$5 margaritas, $3 beers, free giveaways, Don Juan’s, multiple locations.

-Compiled by Danny Mounce

Nassau County police said John Morgenstern of Wantagh was riding a Harley Davidson eastbound on Sunrise Highway when he began wobble and fall to the pavement near the corner of Rose Place at 1 p.m. Saturday.

Morgenstern appeared to experience a medical condition, police said.

The motorcycle struck an eastbound Mini Cooper.  The driver and passenger in the car were not injured.

Morgenstern was taken to a local hospital where he was pronounced dead.

Seventh Squad detectives impounded the motorcycle for brake and safety inspections.

William Flanagan stood stoic with his chin up as the jury foreman read the partial verdict of guilty on two misdemeanor counts of official misconduct at about 7:30 p.m. Thursday.

Judge Mark Cohen ordered the jurors to continue deliberating until 9 p.m., when they were recessed until Friday morning. They’ll then continue deliberating on two remaining charges: Sixth-degree conspiracy, a misdemeanor, and receiving reward for official misconduct, a felony.

“This fight is far from over,” Bruce Barket, attorney for the 55-year-old police veteran, told reporters outside the courtroom in Mineola as he vowed to appeal the ruling.

District Attorney Kathleen Rice’s office “will have no comment until the trial is over and the jury has been released,” her spokesman said in a statement.

Prosecutors alleged that Flanagan helped return electronics stolen from John F. Kennedy High School in Bellmore by Zachary Parker, the son of wealthy police nonprofit donor Gary Parker, who testified during the four-week-long trial that he asked for Flanagan’s help because Parker believed returning the equipment meant the charges against his son would be dropped.

Parker gave Flanagan three $100 gift cards to Morton’s Steak House shortly after the property was returned. Zachary was not charged with the May 2009 thefts until prosecutors began investigating the coverup after it was uncovered by a 2011 Press expose.

Two other former Nassau police supervisors, ex-Deputy Chief of Patrol John Hunter and retired Det. Sgt. Alan Sharpe, pleaded not guilty to misconduct and conspiracy charges along with Flanagan following their indictments in March 2012.

The other two ex-cops are expected to be tried separately. Zachary Parker is serving prison time for the burglary and other charges.

Flanagan faces four years in prison for the receiving reward for official misconduct charge, if convicted of that count. He faces up to a year in jail for the misconduct convictions.

“I know that you’ve had a very long day,” Judge Cohen told the jury before releasing them for the evening. “Perhaps a good night’s sleep will allow… for a resolution.”

Former Nassau County Police Second Deputy Commissioner William Flanagan faces conspiracy and official misconduct charges. He surrendered to the Nassau County District Attorney’s Office March 1, 2012.

An ex-Nassau County police detective testified that the ex-commander who’s a defendant in an alleged cover-up case thanked him after the investigator returned stolen property without arresting the suspect who’s a police donor’s son.

Retired Seventh Squad Det. Bruce Coffey and two current Nassau police officials—his ex-partner, Det. Barry Franklin, and his old boss, Deputy Inspector Lorna Atmore—took the stand last week in the trial of William Flanagan, the former second deputy police commissioner.

“We’re getting calls from pretty high up about this case,” Coffey said one of his bosses, retired Det. Sgt. Alan Sharpe—Flanagan’s co-defendant, who’s case has been severed—told him. But, Coffey testified, the brass wanted the charges dropped: “They weren’t looking for an arrest.”

Flanagan has pleaded not guilty to conspiracy and misconduct charges along with Sharpe and former Deputy Chief of Patrol John Hunter, who’s also slated to be tried separately. Coffey, who’s cooperating as a witness to avoid prosecution, testified Hunter leaned on Sharpe to have Coffey get the charges dropped.

The allegedly quashed case was that of Zachary Parker, a former student at Bellmore’s John F. Kennedy High School, who admitted last year to burglarizing his alma mater in 2009 and is serving prison time for the $11,000 in thefts. His father, Gary, was a friend of Hunter and Flanagan as well as a director of a Nassau police nonprofit. The Press exposed the alleged cover-up in March 2011.

“You didn’t order an arrest…because the school was ambivalent, is that correct?” Bruce Barket, Flanagan’s attorney, asked Atmore, Coffey’s then-supervisor. She agreed, adding that it was “not unusual” for schools to take an initial wait-and-see approach on arresting students.

Atmore testified that the day the report came in she learned Parker was a well-connected suspect who she believed would “very likely” be arrested and reported the case to the Internal Affairs Unit (IAU) because he worked in the department’s Emergency Ambulance Bureau.

“I was relieved that I wouldn’t have to get involved,” she testified of her desire to avoid a case involving a suspect who’s dad is friends with some of her bosses. “I’m thinking this is a good thing, my detectives aren’t going to be responsible for dealing with this mess.”

Her relief was short-lived. Atmore said the same day she called IAU, Hunter called her back and “said that the Seventh Squad was keeping the case.” She said “It was odd and it was weird and I was trying to figure out what his relation was,” because as a patrol commander, Hunter wasn’t generally involved in detectives’ investigations.

Atmore obeyed the order, but transferred the case to Coffey after pulling it from his partner, Franklin, who originally was assigned the case. She was promoted out of the squad days later, leaving Sharpe in charge as commanding officer.

“How many other cases you were assigned were taken away from you and assigned to another detective?” Assistant District Attorney Cristiana McSloy asked Franklin, who replied, “none.”

Franklin said he didn’t properly log in as evidence the two stolen laptops and projector because it was another detective’s case and that it also hadn’t been logged in by the Fifth Precinct, where Zachary Parker’s friend originally turned some of the stolen proerty in.

Coffey said he was “conflicted” about asking the school’s principal, Lorraine Poppe, to drop the charges when they met shortly after the theft. So he went through the motions of interviewing, but not taking sworn statements from witnesses—and never asked for videotape of Parker fleeing the scene the night of the burglary.

“She was very adamant about wanting him to be arrested,” Coffey testified. “It wasn’t the time to do it. I had to show her some respect.”

Also revealed at trial was that another detective had tried to get Poppe to sign a form indicating she wanted to drop the charges a month after the theft, but she refused. Coffey eventually had Poppe sign a form accepting the property Sept. 1, 2009, but she again refused to sign the form dropping the charges, he testified.

Later that fall at a retirement party, “I was sitting down at a table, [Deputy] Commissioner Flanagan came up, shook my hand and said, ‘Thank you,’” Coffey testified.

“I thought it was obviously for the John F. Kennedy case,” he said, “for handling the return of the property.”

When it was Coffey’s turn to retire in October 2010, he said he wrote a memo to close out the Parker theft case indicating that Poppe did not want the suspect arrested—a fact he testified he knew to be untrue.

The detectives’ testimony came after Gary Parker testified for four days last week. Barket asked Parker’s feeling Thursday about how his son blew his chance at probation in the burglary and unrelated drug and traffic cases, landing himself in prison instead of college.

“In hindsight, wouldn’t it be fair to say your son should have been arrested in May 2009?” Barket asked. “Yes,” Parker said after a pause.

Rep. Peter King (R-Seaford), who Parker testified attended one of many police dinners he paid for, sat with Flanagan’s supporters Friday. “Bill’s an old friend,” King told the Press outside the courtroom. “I worked closely with him on homeland security issues.”

Gary Parker (Middle) walking into courtroom on Monday.

A police benefactor testified Wednesday at an alleged police cover up trial that an ex-Nassau County police chief told him that he would ensure investigators would not arrest his son for burglarizing a school.

Gary Parker, whose son Zachary later landed in prison for the burglary, was referring to emails between himself and former Chief of Department John Hunter, who is slated to be tried separately from the defendant in this case, William Flanagan, the ex-second deputy commissioner.

“My attorney thinks if the PD lays low, he can have it wrapped up soon,” Parker testified he wrote in an email to Hunter after Zachary was linked to stealing $11,000 in electronics from John F. Kennedy High School in Bellmore in May 2009.

“I will make sure that is done,” Parker testified that Hunter replied in the email. Parker said he “hoped” that meant detectives would ultimately not arrest his son, which they never did. Zachary was indicted after the Press exposed the cover-up and he pleaded guilty last year.

The exchange occurred a few weeks before Parker asked for help from Flanagan, who’s pleaded not guilty to conspiracy and misconduct along with Hunter and retired Det. Sgt. Alan Sharpe, the supervisor who directly oversaw the investigation.

“Did you ask [Hunter] to use his position in the police department to help your son?” asked Flanagan’s attorney, Bruce Barket. Parker replied that he specifically asked Hunter not to tell anyone about the case because he was embarrassed.

Parker said he and Hunter were good friends and that the ex-chief had spoken with Zachary about his “emotional problems” at one point.

The accountant from Merrick who became a board member of a Nassau police nonprofit also testified that when he gave Flanagan tickets to a Yankees game shortly before the burglary, it wasn’t to curry favors in anticipation over ever having to cover up a crime.

Parker, who’s represented by Steven Scaring although isn’t charged in connection with the allegations, is expected to take the stand again Thursday for his fourth day of testimony in the three-week-long trial at Nassau County court in Mineola.

William Flanagan surrendered to Nassau County prosecutors in March.

A school principal and key witness sparred with a defense attorney who cross examined her Tuesday in the trial of an ex-Nassau County police commander accused of covering up a burglary for a friend.

Bruce Barkett, attorney for former second deputy commissioner William Flanagan, asked Lorraine Poppe, principal of Bellmore’s John F. Kennedy High School, about emails she sent in 2009 as well as conflicting testimony she gave to the grand jury and prosecutors.

“You thought the other event they didn’t need to know about?” Barkett asked Poppe of why she failed to tell prosecutors and grand jurors about one of two meetings with detectives involved in the case.

“I did not recall it,” Poppe said, conceding that she must have been nervous and that her memory was not perfect about events four years prior.

She repeatedly insisted that she never waivered in her request to have Zachary Parker, the son of wealthy police donor and Flanagan’s friend Gary Parker, arrested for stealing $11,000 in electronics from the school in 2009.

Flanagan and two other ex-supervisors being tried separately have pleaded not guilty to covering up the thefts. Zachary Parker pleaded guilty this year to the burglary and is serving prison time after the alleged cover-up was exposed.

“I thought I was being stonewalled and I thought the police department was trying to bury the case,” Poppe told Assistant District Attorney Bernadette Ford during direct examination. “As a [school] district, we do not want to treat wealthy kids different than not so wealthy kids.”

Barkett also questioned Poppe about an email she sent to a detective involved in the case in May 2009 saying she wanted police to put everything “on hold.” Poppe said she wrote that because she needed the school district’s authorization before requesting a student’s arrest and she wanted to determine if Zachary Parker had more stolen property in his possession.

“I wasn’t giving [the detective] an alternative, I was informing him I was speaking with the superintendent about alternatives,” she told the court upon cross examination by Barkett. She testified it was “just part of the process that we go through at the school.”

Poppe, who first took the stand on the second day of the trail last Thursday, is slated to be back in court to offer a third day of testimony Wednesday.

William Flanagan surrendered to Nassau County prosecutors in March.

The principal of John F. Kennedy High School in Bellmore took the stand to testify Thursday in the trial of the ex-Nassau County police commander accused of covering up a campus burglary for his friend.

Lorraine Poppe was one of five witnesses the jury heard from in the second day of arguments—but her testimony is pivotal for prosecutors trying to prove William Flanagan accepted bribes for helping nix the 2009 theft probe as a favor.

“We wanted to have Zachary arrested,” Poppe testified, referring to former student Zachary Parker, who pleaded guilty this year—after the alleged cover-up was exposed—to stealing more than $11,000 worth of electronics from the school.

The Merrick man is the son of Gary Parker, who Flanagan is accused of accepting Morton’s Steak House gift cards and other gifts from after the former second-deputy police commissioner allegedly saw to it the younger Parker dodged justice.

Judge Mark Cohen recessed the case before prosecutors could conclude direct examination, but Poppe is expected to be back in court Friday. Flanagan’s defense attorney, Bruce Barkett, is expected to question Poppe on an email she sent to her boss suggesting that the district hold off on pressing charges at one point.

But, before Poppe entered the courtroom, Barkett won a motion to bar the prosecution from questioning her about a harassment charge the principal filed against a private investigator the defense attorney hired in the case.

“I don’t want any of this to come up at trial,” Barkett told the court, saying that prosecutors are “trying to make me look bad.”

Poppe had filed the complaint after Barkett’s private investigator tracked her last month to an address where she’s being staying since being displaced by Superstorm Sandy, knocked on her door in the middle of the night and startled her awake before leaving a note for her to call Barkett, according to Assistant District Attorney Bernadette Ford.

“If they asked me ahead of time should they do this, I would have said ‘no,’” Barkett said, calling the move “inappropriate.”

Judge Cohen agreed to exclude the testimony on the grounds that there was “insufficient proof of sufficient probative value.”

Lothar Keller, a 24-year-old friend of Zach Parker’s, also testified Thursday that he turned over to police the stolen laptops and a projector that Parker had given him after Parker’s father called Keller and “said that I would be going down for the stolen stuff.”

Flanagan pleaded not guilty to misconduct, conspiracy and other charges in March 2012 along with former Chief of Patrol John Hunter and retired Det. Sgt. Alan Sharpe, whose cases were severed from the current one. Opening statements were Tuesday.

William Flanagan surrendered to Nassau County prosecutors in March.

Opening statements started Tuesday in the conspiracy trial against William Flanagan, the ex-second deputy Nassau County police commissioner accused of helping cover-up a burglary for a friend.

Prosecutors laid out their theory to the jury, who heard allegations that Flanagan received gifts from his friend once burglary charges were dropped against his friend’s son.

Bruce Barket, Flanagan’s defense attorney, argued that the gifts his client received were coincidentally timed and really for Flanagan’s wedding anniversary.

Most disputed, besides Flanagan’s involvement, is whether the principal of John F. Kennedy High School in Bellmore wanted charges against the burglar, former student Zachary Parker of Merrick, dropped.

The principal, Lorraine Poppe, is expected to testify in the trial, which will likely last into February. Parker later pled guilty and is serving prison time for the burglary.

Flanagan pleaded not guilty in March to an indictment charging him with official misconduct and conspiracy along with former Chief of Patrol John Hunter and retired Det. Sgt Alan Sharpe.

Hunter and Sharpe are slated to be tried separately.

Judge Mark Cohen denied motions from Barket calling for a mistrial because he felt the judge was prejudicial when prosecutors objected during his opening statement.

Flangan, Sharpe and Hunter were indicted following a Press expose into benefits given to those who have donated money to a Nassau police nonprofit foundation that is building a new police academy at Nassau Community College.

According to detectives, 28-year-old Peter Andersen stated during a conversation on Dec. 22 that “he wanted to shoot everyone in [Wellington C.] Mepham High School” in Bellmore, police said in a news release.

The principal became aware of the statement on Jan. 3 and alerted the authorities, police said.

First Squad detectives arrested Andersen following an investigation, police said.

He will be arraigned Saturday at First District Court in Hempstead.