According to reports, the two teenagers who were shot outside Lee Zeldin’s Long Island home had spent the day at a recording studio close by that was known for gang activities.
Police said on Monday that the victims, 17-year-olds Elijah Robinson and Joel Murphy, both had non-life-threatening chest wounds.
According to The New York Post, authorities are looking into the possibility that a dispute that occurred at the recording studio the previous evening may have been the cause of the shooting.
One of the teenagers is reportedly a suspected auto thief in the eyes of the authorities, a law enforcement source informed DailyMail.com.
A third youngster who was present at the incident but was unharmed was also targeted by the shooter, who then escaped. The police want to interview him.
To the Long Island Community Hospital were sent the two gunshot victims.
The insider said of the victims, “They’re not being particularly forthcoming.”
Zeldin, 42, and his family were not targets, the source said, but the victims did flee across their yard as shots were fired.
Sunday night, the gunman remained at large.
NY Representative Lee Zeldin addresses the media on Sunday after the gunfire outside his house.
The spot on Lee Zeldin’s front yard where a bullet pierced his fence during the incident on Sunday that left two people injured
According to Zeldin, his twin daughters Mikayla and Arianna, all 16 years old, were completing their schoolwork at home when the incident occurred.
He stated they were uninjured but a little “freaked out.”
Zeldin said in a succinct statement that “crime has practically found its way to our front door, like so many New Yorkers.”
They heard the gunshot, Zeldin informed the media. Boom! They entered the restroom after going upstairs. His girls had phoned 911, he said.
Two 17-year-olds were strolling down the street when a dark-colored SUV stopped up next to them, and someone inside started firing, according to the Suffolk County PD.
Despite being wounded, the two managed to flee for protection in Zeldin’s front yard.
Zeldin was attending an event in the Bronx with his wife, Diana, as part of his campaign to replace Democratic Governor Kathy Hochul of New York at the time of the incident, according to his Twitter profile.
Since 2015, the conservative has represented eastern Long Island’s 1st Congressional District in New York. He has charged Democrats of being too rigorous in enforcing safety measures designed to combat COVID-19 and soft on criminals.
The Shirley, New York, police have stated that they are looking into a gunshot that happened near Saint George Drive West. Unknown are the two victims’ health statuses.
“The two persons who were shot were lying down beneath my front porch and the shrubs in front of our house,” Zeldin said in a statement.
My understanding is that they have been sent to local hospitals, he said. I don’t know who they are.
Zeldin used the opportunity to highlight his daughters’ heroic deeds, saying, “After my girls heard the gunshots and the screams, they went upstairs, locked themselves in the bathroom, and promptly phoned 911.” Diana and I are quite pleased of them since they handled every situation quickly and wisely.
This is Zeldin’s second prominent encounter with violent crime. A inebriated Iraq veteran approached Zeldin in July while he was making a lecture in Rochester, New York.
Republicans and conservative activists initially tried to pin the incident on Democratic supporters, but David Jakubonis, the attacker, later admitted to police that he was unaware of Zeldin’s identity when he stepped up to the podium.
Zeldin trailed Hochul by just two points, according to a recent survey, in what should have been a lopsided contest in the deep-blue state.
Zeldin demanded an investigation into Hochul’s alleged shady practices in September.
52 million Covid-19 Carestart tests will be purchased by Hochul’s government in 2021 for $637 million. According to the Albany Times Union, California made a comparable purchase at the same time but spent 45% less than New York.
According to the article, Hochul’s decision to acquire the item via the firm of a campaign contributor is what caused the price to skyrocket. California, on the other hand, dealt directly with the manufacturer, AccessBio.
According to a Trafalgar Group poll issued last week, Hochul, who succeeded scandal-plagued Gov. Andrew Cuomo in August, has 44.5 percent support in the 2018 campaign for governor.
According to the poll, 42.6 percent of respondents backed Zeldin, a supporter of former president Donald Trump.
Approximately 10% of voters are still unsure, while Libertarian Larry Sharpe was around 3%.
With a margin of error of plus or minus 2.9%, the poll is of probable New York voters. The survey was carried out between September 30 and October 3.
Zeldin has utilized a strategy similar to other Republicans running in the fall election and played up high crime rates, while Hochul’s team has attempted to paint Zeldin as being too Trump-like.
However, according to NY1, Zeldin’s team acknowledged in September that one of the GOP candidate’s advertisements included video of crimes being committed in California, not New York, and that part of the New York material was from before Hochul’s time in office.
But Hochul had been Cuomo’s deputy governor prior to his resignation due to sexual harassment claims.
“You’re looking at genuine violent crimes recorded on video in Kathy Hochul’s New York,” the narration in the advertisement states.
Some of the additional camera evidence showed incidents that occurred before Hochul entered office last year. Zeldin’s team defended the advertisement and said that, despite a mistake, the message was crystal clear: violent crime is out of control.
Another Zeldin advertisement claimed that Hochul had given campaign contributors no-bid contracts, branding him as “even more crooked than Cuomo.”
The race’s early voting period starts on October 29.
Zeldin’s chances of winning the governor’s palace remain slim despite the tight poll.
Hochul seemed to have a strong, double-digit lead in other recent surveys.
And 20 years ago, when Gov. George Pataki was elected to a third term, New York elected its last Republican governor. Since then, the state has had four Democratic governors, with Eliot Spitzer and Andrew Cuomo being the two to resign in the wake of scandals.
As of Friday, FiveThirtyEight predicted that Zeldin had a fewer than 1% chance of winning.
The Army Reserve lieutenant colonel Zeldin said to a crowd after winning his party’s nomination in March: “This is a struggle for the heart and soul of our state.” I’m running to give the public the impression that they are once again in charge of their government.
While surveys show that crime is a major concern for many voters, he has made it a central part of his campaign to clamp down on it.
Zeldin said to convention goers, “It’s about restoring order, it’s about supporting the blue,” later adding, “This is a rescue effort to restore our state that will be successful.”
He advocated for a law enforcement bill of rights that would guarantee the right to self-defense for police personnel.
A 2019 statute that prohibited cash bail and pretrial detention for the majority of minor and nonviolent felony offenses is among the criminal justice improvements that have been promised to be undone by him.
These changes were made by the Democratic-led Legislature in recent years.