New York City's Guardian Angels will resume patrolling the city's subways after an illegal Guatemalan immigrant allegedly burned a homeless straphanger alive on a Brooklyn subway car, killing him on December 22.
Curtis Sliwa, president of the all-volunteer organization, spoke at the Stillwell Avenue Coney Island station in Brooklyn, where the woman was killed and the group began patrolling. reported.
Three-person patrols will resume, and they will be walking inside subway cars, “something police don't do anymore,” Sliwa said. said. He reportedly said that “hundreds of citizens” were demanding the return of the tissue because “the subway is out of control.” (Related: Curtis Sliwa accuses Eric Adams of 'destroying' New York City, Guardian Angels perform citizen's arrest live)
Guardian Angel reappears on the subway to fight flying crime pic.twitter.com/53lynsOvc6
— New York Post (@nypost) December 29, 2024
The group, which now numbers 150 people, last patrolled subways during anti-Asian hate attacks in 2020.
Sebastián Zapeta Khalil, 33, an illegal immigrant from Guatemala, is charged with first- and second-degree murder for allegedly burning an unidentified woman to death. If convicted, he faces life in prison without parole. There is a possibility that it will happen. Ms Sliwa regretted that there was no intervention that could have saved the victim's life.
separately video Sliwa said New York City Police Department (NYPD) officers began patrolling subway cars in 1979, but due to staffing shortages, they are now limited to platforms and ticket gates, resulting in a security vacuum. He said he was there. He added that homeless people are often more susceptible to hallucinations due to dehydration.
“We are the people's patrol force,” he said.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WBuKxiq-r2I
“We're going to have to increase our numbers, increase our training and increase our presence, just like we did in 1979,” Sliwa said.
Sliwa also criticized the city's criminal justice system.
“Please note that there are no mental health workers to intervene in a crisis.[tion] — They have such fancy names — I’ve never seen them,” he said. “And we spent millions of dollars, I might add.”
Guardian Angels will carry out welfare checks and have a “calming effect” on people with mental health problems – some of whom are aware of the group, Sliwa said. . The group plans to work with the conductor and others to report the incident to the police.
“Unfortunately, the public will not intervene in such cases because the Daniel Penny effect has frozen the public,” Sliwa added. “I've seen grown men who might normally have been involved no longer engage.”
“And we're here to say, 'You're seeing something, you're saying something.' Something has to be done,” he said.
Former New York Mayor Bill de Blasio, a Democrat, created a task force in 2014 to ensure that “in appropriate cases” suspects with mental health issues are kept from criminal justice or charged with crimes. Efforts were made to have him treated outside of prison if he was charged. Measures proposed in 2014, such as allowing those incarcerated to receive non-punitive treatment; action plan report revealed. The de Blasio City Council has committed $130 million over four years to the project.
City Council under Democratic Mayor Eric Adams called Amid the city's fight against recidivism, $8.9 million will be added to the amount earmarked for mental health courts in the city's fiscal year 2025 budget to prevent city jails from turning into psychiatric hospitals. There is.
In early March, Adams and NYPD Transit Commissioner Michael Kemper expressed frustration with repeat offenders in the city's subway system and the apparent inaction of prosecutors and judges, who are reportedly hamstrung by state law. did. New York state's 2019 bail reform also remains a difficult challenge.
Guardian Angels have a rocky relationship with the police and have been repeatedly attacked by criminals. Sliwa's son Anthony, a fellow Guardian Angel, was injured in early October when he fended off an attack on Sliwa and his father-in-law, Democratic former New York Gov. David Paterson.
