An attempted assault on Rep. Lee Zeldin, a Republican candidate for governor of New York, ignited a heated debate over the state’s public safety laws Friday, hours after a man accused of pointing a gun at the candidate was released without bail.
Mr. Zeldin has long made public safety the centerpiece of his campaign against Governor Kathy Hochul, a Democrat. But he and his allies argued Friday that the incident instinctively led to the need to increase police presence and tighten bail laws in New York to make it easier for judges to detain people accused of certain crimes.
“Only in Cathy Hochul’s New York could a maniac brutally assault a gubernatorial candidate and then be released without bail,” Nick Langworthy, chairman of the New York Republican Party, wrote on Twitter. “This is what happens when you break the criminal justice system.”
The incident happened Thursday night outside a Veterans of Foreign Wars hall near Rochester, where Mr. Zeldin was making the first of a series of weekend campaign stops. A man, later identified by police as David G. Yakubonis, slowly approached him on stage.
Video footage of the incident showed Mr Iakubonis brandishing a pointed self-defense tool shaped like the face of a cartoon cat as he lunged at Mr Zeldin. Mr Iakubonis can be heard on the video repeatedly saying: “You’re done.”
Mr. Zeldin, a four-term congressman from Long Island and an Army reservist, was not injured until others rushed to the scene and tackled the man to the ground.
Mr. Yakubonis, 43, of Fairport, N.Y., was charged with attempted second-degree assault, according to the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office, and released on bond. Because the crime was an attempt, it was categorized as a non-violent crime. As of 2020, under New York law, judges are prohibited from setting bail on this charge; before that, prosecutors could request that Mr. Yakubonis be held on bail.
There were still many unanswered questions Friday, including about what might have motivated Mr. Iakubonis, an Army veteran, to target Mr. Zeldin.
Mr. Zeldin was scheduled to continue his planned campaign bus tour of the state and deliver remarks about the incident on Friday morning. In a statement late Thursday, Mr. Zeldin said: “I am determined as ever to do my part to make New York City safe again.”
But Republicans wasted little time in arguing that the incident — and Mr. Iakubonis’ release — demonstrated the failure of the bail law introduced by Democrats in recent years.
“It’s terrible public policy that in the state of New York you can try to stab a sitting member of Congress, or anyone else for that matter, and be back on the street not even six hours later,” said Katie Vincenz, a spokeswoman for Mr. Zeldin. “There is not enough accountability for people when they commit crimes, and this is just one of many examples we hear about every day in New York.”
The bail law, which originally went into effect in January 2020 and has been amended twice since then, has been fiercely criticized by Republicans and some Democrats who link it to an increase in certain categories of crime. The researchers say, and the data show, that there is no evidence that the law is responsible for these increases.
The law has allowed thousands of people to walk free instead of being held in jail after failing to post bail for relatively minor crimes. The rate of re-arrests – which can indicate whether the law has contributed to the crime rate – has remained stable. But as some crimes have become more common, the total number of people charged, released and then rearrested for a single crime has increased, giving opponents of the statute plenty of examples with which to attack it.
Ms Hochul, who was traveling in California, condemned the incident on Thursday night.
Kitty Bennett contributed research.
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