Guardian Angels have announced they will resume patrolling New York City's subway cars following the horrific murder of a sleeping passenger on the F train last week.
Since the horrific incident, “hundreds of citizens” have called on Guardian Angels to return to patrolling subway cars, the group, founded by Curtis Sliwa in 1979 in response to high-rise subway crime, said in a statement. .
“We cover the actual train from front to back, walking around the train and making sure everything is okay,” Sliwa told the Post on Sunday. “We do this all the time because the subways are out of control. From today onwards, we will focus completely on that.”
The group's latest strategy will focus on conducting health screenings for homeless and emotionally unstable people.
The group said Guardian Angels will provide water to homeless people and report any problems to the NYPD.
The group last patrolled subways in 2020 following attacks that targeted members of the Asian community during a surge in coronavirus infections.
The group's 150 New York City members will begin their patrol by boarding a train from the Coney Island-Stilwell Avenue station, where last week's senseless attack occurred.
The woman, who has not yet been identified, was set on fire as she slept on the train as it pulled into the station at the end of the F line. Police later arrested Sebastián Zapeta-Khalil, an illegal immigrant from Gotemala, for starting the fire.
Authorities said it appeared to be completely reckless.
“A lot of trains come and go here,” Sliwa said. “It's a perfect place to remind people that a week ago no one did anything. No one intervened. No one pointed at the cops and said, 'This is it.' The police didn't do anything either. ”
Sliwa hopes the group's presence on the train will keep people from becoming bystanders. “This was an example of people just not engaging,” he says. “And we're here to say, you see something, you say something. We have to do something.”
Part of the problem, Sliwa said, is that there are no officers actively patrolling the trains to help people.
“We're now back to where we were when we started the group in the metro in 1979. We've come full circle. We've never seen it this bad. Never,” Sliwa said. .
