A New York county executive is calling out politicians for their failure to combat the state's crime surge after a father was killed by a stray bullet while visiting his son at his college over the weekend.
Dutchess County Executive Marc Molinaro discussed the tragic killing of 53-year-old Paul Kutz and the broader issues at hand with the crime spike on "Fox & Friends" Wednesday.
"All of us who call New York home, and certainly we've seen this in the suburbs of New York… crime is on the rise," Molinaro told the "Fox & Friends" co-hosts.
"Violence is on the rise, and there are people, policymakers and others, who live in some sort of alternative reality where they either don't want to admit or accept failure for policies that are making us less safe and more dangerous, or they're too ignorant to understand the violence that that that people are facing every day in every community."
Kutz was shot and killed Sunday morning when police said he was gunned down by a homeless man whom he didn’t know during a "random" attack in a hotel lobby.
"What we think we know, and again, this is an ongoing investigation, is that they were doing some kind of illegal drug deal, and they were just… kind of hyped up and got into an argument," Molinaro said. "But these are individuals, frankly, who are… in quotes, homeless. These are drug dealers."
"These are professional criminals who have a long history of crime and are known to law enforcement," he continued.
Kutz was staying at a Courtyard by Marriott hotel in the New York suburb of Poughkeepsie to visit his son, a student at Marist College.
"Innocence was shattered by two individuals who quite, quite frankly, have a long history of criminal activity known to police," Molinaro said.
"Sadly, a father is gone," he continued. "A family is without their husband, without their dad, without their friend, and this is all too common across New York these days."
Fox News' Michael Ruiz and Stephanie Pagones contributed to this report.
