Blue state squatters put on notice with 'aggressive' law and order bill

A New York Republican lawmaker is railing against the state’s squatting "epidemic" with a bill that would allow police to immediately evict squatters, while ushering law and order back into the Democratic-run state, he said.

"We need to make sure that we fix this huge epidemic right now. And it's coming more and more and more," Republican state Sen. Mario Mattera, who represents the 2nd Senate District on Long Island, told Fox News Digital in a Zoom interview this week.

New York, most notably in New York City, has been rocked by repeated instances of squatting cases, including a handful that have turned violent and even murderous. Mattera pointed to one man on Long Island in 2021, plumber Thomas Buckleman, who was brutally beaten with a baseball bat by a squatter when he was hired to winterize a building in Blue Point.

Buckleman was left with three fractures to his skull and blood on his brain, and told local media at the time he believed he was going to die. Last month, another woman died when she allegedly walked into her deceased mother’s New York City apartment and discovered squatters. The squatters were arrested in Pennsylvania after allegedly stealing the dead woman’s Lexus and stuffing her body in a duffel bag.