New York congressman and Republican gubernatorial candidate Lee Zeldin said his family was safe after two teenagers were shot outside his Long Island home on Sunday afternoon. The boys, both 17, were walking with a third teenager down the street in Shirley, New York, where Zeldin lives when they were hit by gunfire from a moving car, Suffolk County Police said.
The injured teenagers then tried to hide in Zeldin's yard, ducking under his porch and into the bushes, while those with them fled. The congressman and his wife were not home at the time of the shooting, but their teenage daughter was doing homework in the kitchen when they heard gunfire and screaming, Zeldin said.
"One of the bullets was actually found 30 feet (9.14 meters) from where they were sitting," Zeldin said at a news conference Sunday evening. Police said the injuries of the injured teenager were not life-threatening. Both are being treated at a regional hospital. Authorities did not release their names but said the teens were from the nearby towns of Mastic and Mastic Beach. "At this time investigators have no reason to believe there was a link between the shooting and the residence," the Suffolk County Police Department said in a statement.
Zeldin said he did not know the identity of the two people who were shot. She said her 16-year-old daughter locked herself in the bathroom and called 911. Her family was shaken but fine, she said. Zeldin and his wife were returning from a parade in the Bronx when the shooting occurred. He said police officers were at his home investigating Sunday night and checking home security cameras.
Police had no information to release about who opened fire, a department spokesman said. Zeldin, who is running against Democratic Governor Kathy Hochul, has made violent crime a focus of his campaign. He has called for state bailout laws to be tightened, among other measures.
"Like so many New Yorkers, crime is literally coming into our front door," Zeldin said Sunday. He later said in a post on Twitter that his daughter was at the kitchen table when the shooting occurred and one of the bullets was found 30 feet from them.
This was the second fear she had experienced in months. In July, he was attacked while campaigning in upstate New York when a man approached him on stage and stabbed him with a sharp object near his head and neck. He was unharmed and the man was arrested. Hochul said in a statement posted on Twitter that he had been notified of the shooting.
"While we await further details, I am relieved to hear that the Zeldin family is safe and grateful for the swift response of law enforcement," the governor said.