Massive Apple straphangers are on board.
New Yorkers on Monday embraced the Guardian Angels and founder Curtis Sliwa because the anti-crime crusaders resumed patrols of the troubled metropolis subway system for the primary time since 2020.
One grateful New Yorker even planted a kiss on Sliwa because the red-beret-wearing crew poked across the darkest corners of Bronx and Manhattan stations in search of bother — with The Submit tagging alongside.
“It’s good to see ya’ll back,” Bronx resident Tammy Benson, 60, advised Sliwa after giving him a kiss on the a hundred and twenty fifth Avenue station in Harlem. “You and them want to return again. I’m grateful to see it. I really feel actually blessed once I see [Sliwa] It’s been like 40 years and he’s actually candy and type.
“You need to come back!”
One other straphanger, Manhattanite Natalie Lora, advised The Submit the Angels have been a welcome sight.
“We need them,” stated Lora, 40. “It’s that time: We need them again. We’re happy to see them. If you’re a native New Yorker then you know.”
Sliwa, a former Republican mayoral candidate, was flipping burgers as night time supervisor at a Bronx McDonald’s when he based the group in 1979 amid horrific subway violence on the time.
As soon as topping off with hundreds of members worldwide, the Guardian Angels have since returned to the underground a number of occasions — however not because the final patrols practically 15 years in the past.
This weekend Sliwa introduced that he was taking his volunteers again into the transit system following the horrifying arson dying of a homeless lady on an F practice in Brooklyn earlier this month.
On Monday cops reported two extra transit assaults — a 48-year-old man slashed within the neck on the West fiftieth Avenue and Eighth Avenue station in Manhattan and a 52-year-old man stabbed within the arm on the Myrtle-Wyckoff station on the Brooklyn-Queens border.
NYPD stats present that over the previous 28 days alone there have been 48 felony assaults reported within the system, a bounce of about 40% over the identical interval final yr.
Sliwa stated that’s why the Angels are again on the beat within the subways.
“We ride the trains and check every car and make the presence known in every car and then we get off and check the really bad stations like here at 125th and Lex,” he stated. “Upstairs is like dope fiend city.”
Guardian Angels founding member Arnaldo Salinas stated 70 folks have reached out to volunteer for the subway patrols since The Submit wrote in regards to the new effort on Sunday.
However Salinas stated candidates are fastidiously screened to weed out vigilantes out for blood.
“First, we do the interviews and we ask them questions like why do you want to do this, and if we get answers like ‘my mom was robbed the other day an I want to get out there and kick the f–king s–t out of somebody,’ then, no, we can’t use you,” he stated.
“If you’re one of these Bruce Lee wannabes, I’m afraid not. We can’t use you,” Salinas added.
He stated the gig can also be harmful — six Guardian Angels have been killed on patrols since 1980, and others have suffered accidents starting from damaged bones to dropping an eye fixed from an assault with a golf membership.
The brand new patrols encompass three Guardian Angels every and can run across the clock on four-hour shifts, the group stated, with the F line — website of the horrific arson assault — one of many major focuses.
On Monday two groups, together with Sliwa, boarded an uptown 6 practice as much as Harlem, then again downtown and to the Coney Island station in Brooklyn — approaching the homeless and providing to assist.
At one station a shoeless younger lady approached Sliwa — asking if he was the mayor.
After a quick dialog a bystander stepped up and gave the girl a pair of socks.
“See?” Sliwa advised her. “There are good people who care about you. You can get out of this.”
In a single tense encounter, Sliwa approached a person who seemed to be promoting medication on the a hundred and twenty fifth Avenue station, chewing out the person till he walked away.
“You better get the hell out of the subway,” he advised the person. “We will get you out of the subway if you’re here to sell drugs. Get the hell out.”
Whether or not or not the confrontation was largely for present, it was a welcome sight for a lot of straphangers.
“You guys are needed down here,” 52-year-old Bronx resident Sonny Raimundi advised Sliwa as he shook his hand Monday. “You guys are for the common people who find themselves working the night time shifts and the late shifts and down right here at night time alone.
“The cops can’t cover everything,” he added.
Nonetheless, a rep for Mayor Eric Adams on Monday maintained that cops have put a dent in crime within the metropolis, and prompt that the Guardian Angels’ new patrols are little greater than “theatrics.” Adams defeated Sliwa within the 2021 mayoral race.
“The mayor surged 1,000 police officers per day into the subways, has brought down overall crime, and transit crime, delivering real action — not theatrics — but he knows there’s still more work to be done,” Metropolis Corridor press secretary Kayla Mamelak stated in an electronic mail.
“Unlike others who only seek attention with meaningless stunts, Mayor Adams remains focused on real solutions.”
The brand new patrols come as Gov. Kathy Hochul deployed 1,250 Nationwide Guardsmen to patrol the town’s transit system at 150 places together with the most important hubs at Grand Central, Occasions Sq. and Atlantic Avenue/Barclays Heart.
A spokesman for Hochul declined to touch upon the Angels’ patrols however stated the governor is working carefully with Metropolis Corridor and the NYPD to “take away people with psychological sickness who pose a threat to themselves or others.
“Governor Hochul understands there’s more work to do, and she will continue working with NYPD, State Police, MTA PD, National Guard and other law enforcement personnel to make our subways safer,” spokesman Avi Small stated.
Further reporting by Craig McCarthy and Carl Campanile
