Heroes: Guardian Angels resuming patrols of NYC subways as crime continues to rise

NEW YORK CITY, NY - The Guardian Angels, a volunteer crime-prevention group, has announced its plans to resume its patrols of the New York City subways after crime continues to rise and the death of a woman burned alive one week ago. 

According to Fox News, the group was incentivized after an illegal immigrant was arrested for allegedly setting a woman on fire in a subway car where she ultimately burned to death. Since then, Guardian Angels founder, Curtis Sliwa said that they have received hundreds of requests from residents to offer its services.

On Sunday, Sliwa told The New York Post, "We're now back to where we were when I started the group in 1979 on the subways. It's gone full circle. I've never seen it this bad. Never." Sliwa founded the group because "the need was there" after a rise in violent crime. Now, 45-years later, he argues that "the need is here now once again" and so his group is "going to step up."

He said, "We're covering the actual trains from front to back, walking through the trains and making sure that everything is okay. We're doing this constantly now. Starting today, that's going to be our complete focus because the subways are out of control. We're going to have to increase our numbers. Increase the training and increase our presence as we did back in 1979."

Sliwa said that 150 members will begin patrolling the Coney Island-Stillwell Avenue station where the woman was burned and killed. The group plans to provide wellness checks and water to homeless people and other emotionally distressed passengers while reporting issues to the New York Police Department (NYPD). 

He said he hopes that his group will inspire other New Yorkers to be more than bystanders when things happen. He said, "There's so many trains that come in and out of here. It's the perfect place because it reminds people that nobody did anything a week ago. Nobody intervened. Nobody pointed to the cops and said, "This is the guy.' Even the cops didn't do anything. It was an example of people just not getting involved. And we're here to say, 'You see something, you say something.' You got to do something."

On Monday, January 30th, New Yorkers embraced the Guardian Angels and Sliwa as the crime-prevention group resumed its patrols of the subways for the first time since 2020. One grateful New Yorker even planted a kiss on Sliwa and said, "It's good to see ya'll back. You and them need to come back. I'm grateful to see it. I feel really blessed when I see [Sliwa]. It's been like 40 years and he's really sweet and kind."

Another resident said that the Guardian Angels are a welcome sight adding, "We need them. It's that time. We need them again. We're happy to see them. If you're a native New Yorker then you know." Since the woman who was burned alive, NYPD reported two more transit attacks — a 48-year-old man slashed in the neck at the West 50th Street and Eighth Avenue station in Manhattan and a 52-year-old man stabbed in the arm at the Myrtle-Wyckoff station on the Brooklyn-Queens border.

NYPD stats show that over the last 28 days alone there were 49 felony assaults reported in the system, a jump of nearly 40 percent over the same period last year. Guardian Angels founding member Arnaldo Salinas said over 70 people have reached out to volunteer for the subway patrols since The Post wrote about the new effort on Sunday. 

He said applicants are carefully screened to weed out vigilantes our for blood. He said, "First, we do the interviews and we ask them questions like why do you want to this, and if we get answers like 'my mom was robbed the other day and I want to get out there and kick the (expletive) out of somebody,' then no, we can't use you."

He added, "If you're one of these Bruce Lee wannabes, I'm afraid not. We can't use you." Salinas said that the gig is also dangerous. Six Guardian Angels have been killed on patrols since 1980 and others have suffered injuries ranging from broken bones to losing an eye from an attack with a golf club.