The Advocate is running the preview of tonight’s meeting, which is a good thing because then I don’t have to do it.
At-large Common Council member Mike Geake invited Sliwa to speak at tonight’s meeting of the council’s Health, Welfare and Public Safety Committee in response to residents’ interest in forming a chapter of the crime-busting group in South Norwalk.
Sliwa founded the nonprofit Guardian Angels in 1979, when violent crime rates were skyrocketing in New York City.
Guardian Angels volunteers undergo three months of tactical, mental and physical training before they patrol streets in groups of at least four, wearing distinctive red berets and red satin jackets and performing citizens’ arrests. Today, the organization has 104 chapters in 12 cities, Sliwa said.
Geake said his goal is to hold a fact-finding session, not necessarily to support forming a local chapter.
“I kept hearing from people that, ‘Gee, we ought to start a chapter,’ ” Geake said. “I decided if people are close to doing this, I wanted (elected officials) to be at the table.”
But Norwalk’s mayor and police chief have questioned the need for the group and Geake’s method of inviting them. Geake invited Sliwa before contacting him or the mayor, Police Chief Harry Rilling said.
“I’m not ready to say the Guardian Angels are a fit for Norwalk, and I take great exception to the way it was done,” Rilling said.
“I don’t see any harm in having an individual come and make a presentation, but you should do your homework first and not after.”
Sliwa said city officials’ criticism of Geake is remarkable.
“You’d think he had invited (Iranian president Mahmoud) Ahmadinejad to speak at Columbia University,” he said.
Mayor Richard Moccia said bringing in the anti-crime group sends the wrong message.
“Violent and major crime is down over the last two years,” he said. “It sends the message to people interested in moving to or working in Norwalk that we’re so overridden with crime.”
For the first half of 2007, the latest period for which statistics are available, Norwalk saw an 11 percent reduction in serious crimes compared with 2006.
The Norwalk Police Department also is growing.
With 170 officers on patrol and six in the academy, the force should be close to its authorized full strength of 182 in the next year and a half, Rilling said.
Statistics are irrelevant if South Norwalk residents feel unsafe, Geake said.
Mike, Mike, Mike. Statistics are irrelevant? Ahem, whatever happened to the old adage, you can’t manage what you don’t know. I’m sorry anecdotal evidence has a place, but not for policy making.
“I’m not so sure crime has increased as much as people’s tolerance of it and patience with it has ended. It gets to the point where enough is enough,” he said.
Moccia said the Guardian Angels are out of context for South Norwalk.
“I disagree that SoNo is unsafe. I’m not a Pollyanna though. Do we have problems? Sure,” Moccia said. “But at the time Curtis started this 30 years ago in New York, it was a different era. It might have been the right thing at the time, but not now.”
Sliwa, who works closely with the year-old New Haven chapter of the Angels, said he is familiar with South Norwalk.
“I’m amazed at the sense of denial. I’ve gone back and forth on Metro-North (Railroad), passing South Norwalk, and people say, ‘Oh man, they need you in South Norwalk, how come you guys aren’t getting off here?’ I understand parts of Norwalk are not in need of the Guardian Angels. I’m a realist, but South Norwalk could use a division of Marines coming back from Fallujah in Iraq,” he said.
The Angels’ eyes and ears could supplement police work, Geake said.
“This is not me saying the police aren’t doing a good job. This is me saying there are things the police are not an appropriate answer for,” he said. “You use police for what police are best at and are intended for. The Guardian Angels are for a different purpose.”
Misconceptions about the Guardian Angels include that they’re vigilantes or members of the Hell’s Angels motorcycle gang, Sliwa said.
The group’s primary advantage is a preventive effect on crime, he said; it can also combat the conventional street wisdom preventing witnesses from sharing crime tips with police for fear of retaliation.
The city has no authority to prevent the volunteer group from forming.
“They’re private citizens, and as long as they act within the boundaries of the law, there’s not a thing the city can do to prevent this. If they want to form, they will form,” Geake said.
But if residents aren’t interested in forming a chapter, the Guardian Angels won’t force it, Sliwa said.
An attempt to found a Stamford Guardian Angels chapter in 1981 failed for lack of interest.
In 1983, Sliwa told an audience at Norwalk Community College he had no plans to start a Norwalk chapter or revive one in Stamford unless residents showed enough interest.
Stamford law enforcement officials opposed formation of a local group in 1981.
Each city’s chapter must be made up of local residents, Sliwa said.
“We have to be invited. We don’t just play pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey, where are we going to go today?” he said. “We leave it up to the citizens, because if the citizens won’t join, there won’t be Guardian Angels. We’re not mercenaries. We’re not Hessians. We’re not going to come up from New York and New Haven. We’re just going to show local people what they can do to become a Guardian Angel.”
source: Advocate, Guardian Angels’ founder speaks tonight, By Alexandra Fenwick, 05/22/2008
