Republican Congressman Lee Zeldin on Friday described the chilling assault on him at a marketing campaign cease, saying he was caught off guard as a result of the person who lunged at him with a weapon was a fellow veteran — however then some “pink flags” popped up.
And the candidate for governor ripped his assailant’s fast launch beneath New York’s soft-on-crime bail legal guidelines.
“You simply can’t be going round making an attempt to stab, not simply members of Congress, however anyone, for that matter,” the Republican candidate for New York governor instructed 1010 WINS radio.
“I consider you shouldn’t simply be immediately launched,” he stated of the 43-year-old suspect, David Jakubonis, who allegedly charged him whereas warning, “You’re completed!”
Zeldin, 42, additionally stated he noticed a sequence of “pink flags” when he seen somebody approaching him as he spoke at a marketing campaign cease close to Rochester on Thursday.
“Most significantly, he had one thing in his hand — it was much like brass knuckles,” he recalled, noting there have been “two pointy ends popping out of the weapon” like a claw.
“That was a weapon … that appears like one thing that may trigger a major harm,” he stated.
However amid the pink flags, Zeldin stated, he was confused at seeing Jakubonis in a veteran’s hat.
“Often in life, once I see anyone carrying a veteran’s hat, my guard is dropped as little as it could possibly get,” he instructed the radio station.
Nonetheless, “as soon as he began lunging in the direction of my neck space with it, I simply in a short time grabbed his wrist,” recalled the congressman from Lengthy Island.
“I simply wanted just a few moments of holding his wrist there earlier than all people else jumped on” him and tackled him, he stated.
Zeldin famous that there have been no uniformed cops on the occasion — and advised he could have been capable of escape unhurt as a result of Jakubonis was intoxicated.
“I used to be instructed that he was beneath the affect — that he was drunk. Which may have impacted the velocity at which he was coming at me a bit,” he stated, noting how one in all Jakubonis’ footwear additionally appeared to get caught.
Even minutes after he was subdued, “there was a dialog happening as as to if or not he had further weapons,” the congressman stated.
He then decried soft-on-crime legal guidelines that — as he had predicted — allowed
Jakubonis to be freed quickly after he was tackled and arrested.
Calling for a “main overhaul” of the bail legal guidelines, he stated they aren't “making New York any safer. I've enormous considerations with the influence of them.”
In his case, Jakubonis ought to have been held in custody as a result of “he was beneath the affect” and had identified “psychological points,” Zeldin stated.
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