Long Island elected leaders, citizens react with outrage, concern after Trump assassination attempt

Long Islanders, from elected leaders to everyday citizens, spent Sunday like millions of others nationwide: feeling outraged and stunned by an assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump, and condemning political violence and polarizing rhetoric.

Members of Congress representing the Island from both sides of the aisle united in their concerns, mostly steering clear of more heated political language as new information about Saturday's shooting continued to emerge.

“[I hope] that we can go up from here, that we can understand each other better, and that we can focus more on policy disagreements, rather than people and personalities,” Republican 1st Congressional District Rep. Nick LaLota told Newsday on Sunday.

The gunman, who was killed by a Secret Service sharp shooter, opened fire just after 6 p.m. Saturday at the Butler, Pennsylvania, rally. Authorities on Sunday identified a spectator shot and killed at the rally as Corey Comperatore, 50, a former fire chief from the area. Pennsylvania State Police on Sunday identified two other men who were shot as David Dutch, 57, of New Kensington, Pennsylvania, and James Copenhaver, 74, of Moon Township, Pennsylvania. Both men remained hospitalized and were listed in stable condition, state police said.

Trump posted on social media that a bullet had hit his right ear. 

LaLota, of Amityville, said he was at dinner with family Saturday night when he received word of the assassination attempt, describing it as “troubling news to digest.”

He initially took to social media with sharp criticism of the “mainstream media” over its recent coverage of President Joe Biden's comment that it was time “to put Trump in the bull's-eye.”

LaLota on Sunday said it was time for something else: a “change in the rhetoric.”

"[It's] difficult news to deliver to young kids, that this is a part of American politics,” he said. “This is not normal. This should not be accepted. Every American, regardless of the party, Republican, Democrat, independent, should reject not only yesterday's events, but what got us here.”

Rep. Tom Suozzi (D-Glen Cove) called it a “very sad time in American history” in an interview Sunday.

Concern over 'rhetoric'

“Our condolences to the people that were injured and the man that was killed … I think everybody's scared, everybody's worried,” Suozzi said. “Everybody's like, ‘What's happening in our country?’ ”

Suozzi said the message now has to be about coming together.

“Stop with the rhetoric, stop with the hyperbole, stop with the histrionics,” he said. “We can disagree with each other, but we don't have to hold each other in contempt.”

On the Long Beach boardwalk Sunday afternoon, Justin Kuperschmid, 27, agreed.

Kuperschmid told Newsday he usually avoids paying much attention to politics, but the attempted assassination of Trump left him lamenting the state of the country in 2024.

“We’re supposed to be the United States, not the divided states,” said the Long Beach resident. “When [former President] Barack Obama was in office, I feel like everyone had more respect for each other, but it feels like everyone is going at each other’s throats. I just don’t think that’s right. That’s not how our country should be.”

Kuperschmid said he hopes both Trump and Biden step up security as their campaigns continue.

“No matter if someone’s not a fan of somebody,” he added, “it’s not the right thing to go as far as to cause violence.”

Darlene Metz, 55, a Hewlett resident and a teacher in Suffolk County, condemned the attempted assassination but was less than surprised.

Metz said she’s seen the rise in national political polarization reflected in her students in recent years.

“It’s ‘us against them’ in lots of things,” Metz, 55, said. “Parents were much more on board with us and working together, and now I feel this polarization. I think it’s just a societal thing that’s happened, too, and it hasn’t helped with what’s happened in the last four to eight years.” 

Echoes of the past

Fred Cohen, 72, said he was also disturbed, and also not surprised by Saturday's shooting.

Cohen had been driving on Long Beach Road in Oceanside Saturday night, listening to Trump’s speech on the radio when he heard what initially sounded like “firecrackers.” 

As he realized the former and possibly future president had been shot, the Oceanside resident said his mind went back to 1968. Cohen said he was a high school senior doing field work for Democratic presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy when the U.S. senator from New York was cut down by an assassin's bullet inside a Los Angeles hotel. 

“Same horror that I felt then, I felt now,” Cohen said on the Long Beach boardwalk Sunday.

“After John Kennedy was assassinated,” he said, “I never thought that Robert Kennedy would be assassinated. Now, I was not shocked by the attempt on Trump’s life.”

In a statement, Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman, a Republican who stood at Trump’s side in March for the Massapequa Park funeral of slain NYPD Officer Jonathan Diller, called the former president his friend and the “most resilient person I’ve ever met.”

“He will recover and come back stronger,” Blakeman said of Trump, who is set to receive the nomination for president at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee this week.

Rep. Anthony D’Esposito (R-Island Park), who represents New York's 4th Congressional District, was traveling to the convention Sunday. In social media remarks Saturday, he called the shooting “deeply concerning.” He praised law enforcement and Secret Service officers who “ran toward danger.”

No time for violence

LaLota’s Democratic opponent in the upcoming election, John Avlon, and fellow Democratic congressional hopefuls Laura Gillen and Rob Lubin, each said political violence has “no place” in the United States.

“We must unequivocally condemn today's act of violence,” Lubin wrote on X.

Rep. Andrew Garbarino (R-Bayport), whom Lubin is challenging for the 2nd Congressional District seat, wrote on the same platform Saturday that he was glad to hear Trump is safe following “this horrendous act of political violence.” 

“Praying for him and those in the crowd tonight and I thank Secret Service for their quick response to the attack,” the Garbarino wrote.

At New York City Hall late Sunday afternoon, Mayor Eric Adams appeared at a “Call for Unity” news conference with a Republican city councilman, a rabbi, an imam, the Rev. Al Sharpton and an activist in a jump suit bearing the words “PEACE DOCTOR.”

“We in no way condone or support any violence against him, his family or his supporters,” Sharpton said of Trump.

“Violence is wrong, no matter who you oppose,” Sharpton said. “We cannot settle our political differences with bullets. We settle them with ballots.”

Adams said, “We must start the process of healing not only our country but healing our young people. We will move our country in the right direction. It starts with us.”

City Councilman Joe Borelli, of Staten Island, an avowed Trump-supporting Republican and the chamber’s minority leader, said: “The rhetoric has got to cool.”

Increased police patrols were being deployed to certain sites around New York City, Adams' office said. 

Earlier on Sunday, a man wearing a MAGA hat waved a giant “TRUMP OR DEATH” flag on Fifth Avenue in front of Trump Tower. But by the early evening, the spectacle had cooled at the tower, where the building’s namesake rode down the golden escalator in 2015 to announce his first presidential run. The area Sunday looked more like when Trump was president, with a beefed-up police presence and a nearby street closed.

An NYPD counterterrorism officer stood outside near a building doorman, but there were no anti-Trump protesters. The red hats were sold out at the downstairs store.

Suffolk County Executive Ed Romaine said his office is also monitoring threats in the area, but none had been reported so far. Romaine condemned “hatred and acts of violence” against elected officials or candidates for office “regardless of political affiliation.”

“As Americans, we stand united on the principals that make our country strong,” Romaine said.

With AP