NY Rep. Lee Zeldin says 2 people shot in front of his home

New York congressman and Republican candidate for governor Lee Zeldin says his family is safe after two people were shot outside his Long Island home

Election 2022 Crime (Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.)

New York congressman and Republican candidate for governor Lee Zeldin says his family is safe after two people were shot outside his Long Island home on Sunday.

Zeldin said in a statement that he does not know the identities of the two people who were shot but that they were found under his porch and in the bushes in front of his home in Shirley, New York. The congressman and his wife were not at home at the time of the shooting but their teenager daughters were in the home and heard gunshots and screaming, he said in the statement released by his office.

Zeldin said his daughters locked themselves in a bathroom and called 911. The family is shaken but OK, he said.

He said police officers were at his home investigating Sunday evening and were looking over the home's security cameras. The two people who were shot were taken to local hospitals, he said.

The Suffolk County Police Department issued a brief statement saying it was investigating the shooting. Police had no information about fired the shots to release, a spokeswoman said.

Zeldin, who is running against Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul, has made rising crime and violent crime a focus of his campaign.

“Like so many New Yorkers, crime has literally made its way to our front door,” Zeldin said.

It's the second scare he's had in several months. In July, he was assaulted while campaigning in upstate New York when a man approached him onstage and thrust a sharp object near his head and neck. He was uninjured and the man was arrested.