LI Man Shot While Stopping Sexual Assault Honored By Joe Biden

A 20-year-old man from Lakeview was honored by former Vice President Joe Biden on Wednesday for stopping a sexual assault at a party he was attending, and getting shot twice in the process.

Kyle Richard, a junior at SUNY Cortland and captain of the football team, was honored with the Biden Courage Award for Bystander Intervention at a ceremony in New York City Wednesday night. The ceremony, hosted by It’s On Us and the Biden Foundation, honors student who are working to stop sexual assault.

"Not everyone can be a hero like Kyle," Biden said, while urging other young men not to be silent bystanders. "But you have an obligation to holler ... to step up."

Richard was at a party in Uniondale last summer when he and a friend heard noises coming from the bathroom. They knocked on the door, and heard what sounded like a woman calling for help. Richard pushed the door open and found a man trying to rape a woman.

The man fled, and Richard chased him to the front yard of the house. There, the man pulled out a gun, striking Richard three times — once in each leg and one grazing his shoulder. Richard's friends called for help and he was taken to a hospital. The bullets missed everything important, and He recovered quickly, getting back on the gridiron for the start of the football season.

The man who shot Richard and attempted to rape the woman was arrested a few days later by Nassau police.

“I realize that people do want to hear my voice,” Richard said. “I have support from my whole football team. I have 100 guys supporting me through this, so that’s made it easy for me. But it’s still not an easy topic to talk about. It is a tough topic but we need somebody to talk about it, especially from a male perspective.”

Since stopping the attack, Richard has become an outspoken advocate for stopping sexual assault. In March, he was presented with a Next Generation Award from Kristin’s Fund, founded in memory of Kristin Palumbo Longo, who was murdered by her husband in 2009 in Deerfield, N.Y. He was the guest speaker at Utica College’s Take Back the Night March in April, and was involved with numerous Sexual Assault Awareness Month events at Cortland.

“Kyle is a remarkable young man whose courage and compassion is an inspiration to us all,” said Cortland President Erik J. Bitterbaum in a release. “He exemplifies the type of active and selfless engagement with the world that we encourage in all our students. Needless to say, we are incredibly proud that he is part of the SUNY Cortland community.”

Photo: Theo Wargo/Getty Images for It's On Us