Now that the District B Democrats have separated themselves from Guardian Angel advocacy, the Coalition of Norwalk Neighborhood Associations (CNNA) has stepped in via Al Raymond, president of the Spring Hill Neighborhood Association. According to the Advocate:
“We’re going to try to help the police department, just be eyes and ears out on the street,” Raymond said.
Though the group has a right to organize, Police Chief Harry Rilling and Mayor Richard Moccia have opposed a Guardian Angels chapter in Norwalk, saying it would send the wrong message about the city and creates liability problems.
“I’ve never been open to a chapter,” Rilling said. “I thought it was a niche reaction to a small spike in crime.”
Common Council member Michael Geake invited Guardian Angels founder Curtis Sliwa to a public meeting in May to begin discussing a South Norwalk chapter. Some residents said they were fed up with feeling unsafe in their neighborhoods.
But the reaction hasn’t been all positive. In July, a group of Guardian Angels from the New Haven chapter were pelted with rocks and bottles at the King Kennedy public housing complex on Chestnut Street.
Raymond said that, aside from patrolling the streets, the volunteers also visit schools to present education programs. He hasn’t contacted school officials about that kind of involvement, though, and is not sure how well the group will be received.
“Yes, I have seen some . . . opposition towards it,” Raymond said. “But I think once they get here and they see what’s going on and the good that they do, I think everyone will come around and back this effort.”
Geake said five or six people are interested in joining the group. There was a Guardian Angels tent at the Oyster Festival that got a positive response, and the chapter is supported by the Coalition of Norwalk Neighborhood Associations.Raymond said once he gets enough volunteers, they will go through a rigorous training program with the group, which operates in 138 cities and 12 countries.
Sliwa, a controversial figure who founded the Guardian Angels in New York City in 1979, said he thinks city officials are rushing to judgment.
“You would think the Guardian Angels were the Hells Angels trying to start up a chapter,” Sliwa said.
Opposition to the Guardian Angels is nothing new, but Sliwa said some cities, including Washington, D.C., have formed partnerships with them, and he hopes to do the same in Norwalk.
Sliwa said the group provides cities free help to deal with big problems.
“We’re talking prime-time in terms of gangs, drugs and trouble,” Sliwa said. “You can’t cosmetically paint South Norwalk as the place of bars and bistros.”
Now its somewhat ironic that Silwa would say something so asinine about big “crime” problems and cities. He started out in NYC, patrolling those bars and bistro lined streets because, that’s where the crime was then. Gangs, drugs and trouble follow the bar scene like ants follow picnics. So to dismiss our cosmetically enhanced bar and bistro district is so very disingenuous. Which should be a warning to those that think Guardian Angel activity is somehow going to change the dynamics of crime in Norwalk. Gaze up the line to New Haven and see how that little experiment has worked out.
The truth about crime is that, well, let’s just say that this subject was covered in an old Quincy episode, the lesson starts about 1:40 minutes into it:
source: Advocate, Angels group gains steam, By Lisa Chamoff, 10/01/2008
Gay Online Tv… it`s a 24h broadcasting... 
