On July 21, Congressman Lee Zeldin (R-Shirley) faced an attempted attack in Monroe County while touring the state on a campaign bus tour. Zeldin was onstage at a Veterans of Foreign Wars club in Perinton, just outside Rochester, New York, when a man, David G. Jakubonis, 43, of Fairport, climbed onto the stage and allegedly attacked the Congressman.
“Congressman Zeldin was speaking from the bed of a flatbed trailer. Jakubonis walked onto the trailer, approached the Congressman, extended a keychain with two sharp points toward him and grabbed his arm. A struggle then ensued between Congressman Zeldin and Jakubonis, and, as bystanders intervened, Jakubonis pulled Congressman Zeldin down onto the bed of the trailer, stating several times during the assault, ‘you’re done.’ Jakubonis was subdued and arrested,” according to the Justice Department.
Zeldin is the Republican candidate for Governor of New York State, and during a campaign season, there are expected to be political attacks, but physical assaults of this kind with no immediate repercussions for the criminal are far worse and show how dangerous the playing field is in New York.
In 2020, New York passed scathing bail reform laws aimed to reduce the risk that someone would be jailed because they could not afford to pay for release and reduce the unnecessary use of incarceration. Unfortunately, the results of these new laws have been increased crime, increased gun violence, and increased murder across the state.
“It is terrible public policy that in New York, you can try to stab a sitting Member of Congress, or anyone else for that matter, and be back out on the street not even 6 hours later. This is one of many reasons why crime is on the rise, especially in certain parts of the state. There is not enough accountability for people when they commit crimes, and this is just one of the many examples we hear all about in New York every single day. Enough is enough!,” said Congressman Zeldin.
According to Reuters, in April 2022, “Official statistics show an increase in murders in the city in each of the past four years, but total numbers of murders were still far lower than three decades ago when crime in the United States crested thanks in part to the crack cocaine epidemic of that era.”
This is the new low we have sunk to, that news sources try to spin the disastrous effects of bail reform and the undeniable fact that murders have steadily increased in NYC for four consecutive years by claiming, “at least it’s not as bad as the crack epidemic thirty years ago.” Is this really the standard we want to set for ourselves as New Yorkers? That crime is only bad if the city looks like it did when families were afraid to take their children into Times Square?
On May 18, 1993, The New York Post’s front page dubbed the 5.5 square miles of the 75th Precinct’s neighborhoods — East New York and Cypress Hills — a “KILLING GROUND”, where a murder happened on average once every 63 hours. As quoted in The Post’s article, “Gunfire erupted so frequently that cops didn’t even bother responding to the sound until they knew someone had been hit — and sometimes found the body of a different victim, whose shooting hadn’t even been reported yet, on their way to the first crime scene.” Lieutenants at the time remembered, “Worried moms put their babies to bed in bathtubs or made their older children sleep on the floor in case a stray bullet came whizzing through a window.”
Is this the New York we want again? After we’ve come so far?
These are the campaign promises that Zeldin and running mate Alison Esposito are making. To secure our streets and put communities before criminals. Esposito stated that she is “…calling for Kathy Hochul and her allies to repeal New York’s disastrous cashless bail law. Under Hochul, New Yorkers are scared, and our streets are being overrun by criminals.”
These negative effects of bail reform have endangered our citizens and our police, and now threaten our elected officials in public.
“The violent attack against Lee Zeldin on the campaign trail is reprehensible. What is more reprehensible is the criminal’s near-immediate release without bail thanks to our state’s disastrous ‘bail reform’ laws that empower criminals to commit crimes,” said Lou Civello, Second Vice President of the Suffolk County Police Benevolent Association. “The swath of criminal activity sweeping the state of New York is a direct result of this state’s failure to hold criminals accountable for their actions. The Suffolk PBA, along with Lee Zeldin, have long been advocating for the full repeal of these measures, which make Suffolk County Police Officers and the communities they patrol less safe and more dangerous.”
Under the rule of Governor Hochul, not only are New Yorkers being overrun by criminals, but the criminals are incited to violence, and empowered to harm others. In a campaign correspondence released by the Hochul, titled “’Big Lie’ Lee Kicks Off Statewide ‘MAGA Republican’ Bus Tour. Joined by Far-Right Extremists, ‘Rolex’ Rob Astorino, and Trump’s “Chick-fil-A runner” Andrew Giuliani, Hochul named upcoming rallies and speaking engagements and encouraged people to RSVP to these events. One such advert read “to hear Zeldin’s plans to put more guns on our streets and in our communities, ensuring New Yorkers are less safe.”
Another was a suggestion to RSVP to an event to hear Zeldin “discuss his enduring loyalty to Donald Trump, his hard-fought efforts against Trump’s impeachment, his vote against certifying the 2020 presidential election results, and his refusal to support an investigation into the January 6 insurrection.”
What’s wrong on the national level is amplified on the local level. In New York, when leaders like Maxine Waters, AOC, and now Hochul are urging voters to harass elected officials in the street, their homes, and public places, it is bound to lead to radical behavior.Behavior like that allegedly exhibited by Jakubonis when he purportedly climbed a stage at a speaking event and tried to stab a sitting Congressman with an instrument typically used for self-defense.
Failed bail reform laws, incitation of violence by elected officials, and poor reporting of the facts is a dangerous path and will only lead to a more divided and very dangerous New York. Thankfully, the criminal, in this case, was arrested and charged federally.
Lee Zeldin feels the same, “I’m thankful that federal authorities came in to do what New York state’s broken pro-criminal justice system could not – uphold the rule of law. The state must start prioritizing the safety of law-abiding New Yorkers over criminals. Cashless bail must be repealed, and judges should have the discretion to set cash bail on far more offenses.”
