The shooting just outside New York GOP gubernatorial candidate Lee Zeldin's home may have been gang-related, according to police, who are continuing their probe of the Sunday incident that left two teens injured.
The New York Post on Monday reported more details on the shooting.
Zeldin's twin 16-year-old daughters were home when the incident occurred but were unhurt when two teenagers were shot outside their Long Island home Sunday afternoon. Zeldin and his wife were not home.
The teens who were shot, both 17, were walking with a third teenager on the street in Shirley, New York, when they were hit by gunfire from a moving car, Suffolk County Police said.
The wounded teens then tried to hide in Zeldin's yard, ducking under his porch and into the bushes, while the person who was with them fled.
Zeldin's daughters were in the kitchen doing homework when they heard gunshots and screaming, Zeldin said.
“One of the bullets was actually found 30 feet from where they sitting,” Zeldin said at a news conference late Sunday.
Neighbors told the Post they heard one of the teens screaming "Oh, my God!" as the shots rang out from a passing car. One of the teens said they were walking to the store when the car drove by and an occupant fired shots at them at about 2:20 p.m.
"At first we didn’t believe him," 26-year-old Tyvon Smith told the Post of his 15-year-old brother, Tyler, who was the third teen who was uninjured.
"Tyler came over in shock. He was crying, saying that his friends, his brothers, got shot. He said they were shooting at him, too," Tyvon Smith said. "They were driving by and just took some shots at them, and Tyler just got lucky.
"At first we didn’t believe him," he added. "I said he was just kidding, just playing, that he was just playing too many video games."
"Maybe he had a problem with someone, and they seen him, and they took a shot," Smith said, speaking of his brother. "I’m happy he didn’t get hit."
Tonya Vasquez, who lives across the street from Zeldin, told the Post she heard seven to nine gunshots and went into her daughter's room.
"I heard the screaming, a young man’s voice screaming, 'Call 911! Call 911!' Just crying and screaming, ‘Oh, my God! Oh, my God!,'” she said.
"He ran over to the corner, and the heavier-set kid came out near the stop sign," said Vasquez. "My daughter was yelling at me, 'Don’t go out there! Don’t go out there!'
"One skinny and tall, and the other one kind of heavy-set," she said. "The thinner kid had on black jeans and a red do-rag on his head. The heavier kid was wearing a white T-shirt. He was on the phone screaming."
Police said the wounded teens' injuries were not life-threatening. Both were treated at an area hospital. Authorities didn't release their names but said the teens are from the nearby towns of Mastic and Mastic Beach.
Zeldin, who is running against Democrat Gov. Kathy Hochul, has made violent crime a focus of his campaign. He has called for the state’s bail laws to be toughened, among other measures.
It is 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.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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