Rep. Lee Zeldin, R-N.Y., spoke out against the growing crime crisis after a shooting took place outside his home in Shirley Sunday night. Zeldin said the problem "hit extremely close to home."
Zeldin said on "Fox & Friends" Monday that his two daughters were doing homework in the kitchen when they heard multiple gunshots followed by screams just outside. They locked themselves in an upstairs bathroom and called 911.
"You had two people who got shot who were essentially laying down about ten feet from where they were doing homework," Zeldin said. "One of the bullets landed about 30 feet from where the girls were doing homework."
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Zeldin instructed his daughters to stay in the locked bathroom until police said the situation was all clear, which he said took some time.
The incident, Zeldin said, brought the crime crisis to his front doorstep in Long Island.
"When we were getting back to the house, we had to go through crime scene tape. We were getting advised where to walk so that we weren't stepping on blood," he said. "This is not something that we were planning to return home to."
Critics have pointed to liberal soft-on-crime policies for "emboldening" criminals by failing to enforce accountability.
Paul DiGiacomo, a 40-year career veteran of the NYPD, stressed the severity of the crisis in July and said he no longer feels safe walking the streets of New York City.
"I have 40 years on this police department, and I've never seen it as bad as it is now. The criminal element is empowered, is emboldened, and they feel they could do whatever they want to do with no consequence," he said.
Zeldin praised his daughters for their quick and smart response to the shooting, but he noted that it wasn’t the only incident in New York that day.
"You're also reading about somebody else who got stabbed on a New York City subway, somebody else who got slashed in the East Village," he said.
"This is day after day after day," Zeldin said. "And there are a lot of parents, and there are a lot of families dealing with this reality of rising crime in New York."
