Rep. Lee Zeldin, the Republican candidate for governor who has made crime an issue in his campaign, saw gun violence literally hit close to home on Sunday when a shooting left two people injured in his front yard.
No one in the Zeldin family was hurt.
Zeldin was campaigning Sunday afternoon at a Columbus Day parade in the Bronx with his wife, Diana, when a call came from one of their twin 16-year-old daughters. The teens were alone at the family’s suburban Long Island home and had been doing their homework at the kitchen table when they heard gunshots in their front yard and people screaming.
Both girls locked themselves in an upstairs bathroom.
After one daughter called 911, the other called their parents. The Zeldins rushed home while the congressman contacted law enforcement sources.
“(Diana) stayed on the phone with the girls during the drive,” Zeldin said. “While her heart was clearly racing, she was just talking to them to try to keep them calm, as opposed to her freaking out, too.”
One of the bullets lodged just 30 feet from where the daughters had been sitting.
One of the shooting victims was found underneath the Zeldins' front porch, and the other in the bushes in the yard.
Both male 17-year-olds were taken to the hospital, where they are being treated for their injuries. They are expected to survive.
Suffolk County police said they believe the shooting is unrelated to Zeldin’s role as a candidate for governor or as a U.S. congressman. Police said three teens were walking along the street when a “dark-colored vehicle went by and an occupant fired multiple gunshots through the vehicle’s window.” They say the third teen ran away.
Zeldin’s house is equipped with four security cameras, and he said three people were visible in recordings from the cameras, which the police are analyzing.
Zeldin has made the rising crime rate and New York bail reform laws, which ended many forms of cash bail, a focus of his campaign. He has appeared at many crime scenes around the state to talk about the issue, but he said he never expected his house to become one.
“I’m standing in front of crime scene tape, in front of my own house,” Zeldin said. “You can’t get me more outraged than right now.”
“We’re more pissed off today than we were when we woke up this morning,” he said.
Gov. Kathy Hochul, the Democratic incumbent being challenged by Zeldin, said in a statement that she had been briefed on the shooting. She said she is “relieved to hear the Zeldin family is safe and grateful for law enforcement's quick response.”