The Guardian Angels, a volunteer crime-prevention group, will be resuming its patrols of the New York subways after the death of a woman burned alive one week ago.
“We’re now back to where we were when I started the group in 1979 on the subways. It’s gone full circle. I’ve never seen it this bad. Never,” founder Curtis Sliwa told The New York Post Sunday.
Sliwa founded the Guardian Angels because “the need was there” after a rise in violent crime. Forty-five years later, he argued that “the need is here now once again” and his group is “going to step up.”
“We’re covering the actual trains from front to back, walking through the trains and making sure that everything is okay,” he said. “We’re doing this constantly now. Starting today, that’s going to be our complete focus because the subways are out of control.”
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The group was incentivized after an illegal immigrant was arrested for allegedly setting a woman on fire in a subway car where she ultimately burned to death. Since then, Sliwa claimed they have received requests from “hundreds” of people to offer services.
“We’re going to have to increase our numbers, increase the training and increase our presence as we did back in 1979,” Sliwa said.
According to Sliwa, 150 members will begin patrolling the Coney Island-Stillwell Avenue station where the woman was killed. They plan to provide wellness checks and water to homeless people and other emotionally disturbed passengers while reporting issues to the NYPD.
In the meantime, he emphasized his hopes that his group would inspire New Yorkers to be more than bystanders.
“There’s so many trains that come in and out of here,” Sliwa said. “It’s the perfect place because it reminds people that nobody did anything a week ago. Nobody intervened. Nobody pointed to the cops and said, ‘This is the guy.’ Even the cops didn’t do anything.”
“It was an example of people just not getting involved,” he said. “And we’re here to say, ‘You see something, you say something.’ You got to do something.”
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The announcement came less than two weeks after New York Gov. Kathy Hochul announced that 750 National Guard members and 250 members of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) Police were deployed to patrol the New York City subway system ahead of the holidays.
“It’s clear to me, as I’ve heard from many people, that the presence of the National Guard has made not just a physical difference, but a psychological difference in how they feel about safety,” Hochul said. “When people see a person in uniform… even our National Guard, they feel more secure.”
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