Crime prevention activist and former New York City mayoral candidate Curtis Sliwa has announced that the Guardian Angels group will resume patrols in the city’s subway system after a woman was burned alive earlier this month. This decision follows the brutal murder and what Sliwa describes as the “Daniel Penny effect,” causing civilians to be hesitant about intervening against criminals.
Speaking at Brooklyn’s Stillwell Avenue-Coney Island subway station, Sliwa said, “We’re going to have to increase our numbers, increase the training, and increase our presence as we did back in 1979,” noting how the group went from 13 to 1,000 members in a single year.
The Guardian Angels are recognized for their distinctive red berets and are known to collaborate with law enforcement to tackle violence on public transit—when law enforcement is willing to cooperate, at least. The organization ceased its previous subway surveillance in 2020.
Sliwa believes that the Guardian Angels’ presence could help calm situations and facilitate communication with police officers on platform patrol. However, a spokesman for Mayor Eric Adams denigrated Sliwa’s efforts as “meaningless stunts,” insisting that the indicted Democrat mayor has already implemented measures to reduce crime.
Violence on the New York City subway was brought to national attention by the Daniel Penny case, which saw the Marine veteran accused of unlawfully killing Jordan Neely, a black schizophrenic with a history of assaulting women, by restraining him in a chokehold after he threatened passengers. Penny was cleared of all wrongdoing by a jury earlier this month.
