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BROOKLYN WEEKLY, MARCH 22, 2020
Silwa at his childhood home in Canarsie. Photo by Caroline Ourso
Two injured in Downtown Brooklyn car crash
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BY ROSE ADAMS
Curtis Sliwa, the founder
of the civilian crime-fi ghting
troop Guardian Angels,
announced his plans to run
for mayor as a Republican,
claiming his time on the
streets makes him the perfect
person to lead the fi ve
boroughs — not some career
politician!
“I’ve lived in the streets,
I’ve lived in the inner city,
and I’ve been baptized in
the subways,” said Sliwa.
“I understand what people
go through more so than
Scott Stringer, Eric Adams,
Corey Johnson, or anyone
who has been rumored
to be a candidate.”
The Canarsie native
founded his vigilante watchdog
group in 1979, enlisting
unarmed volunteers to patrol
the streets and subways
wearing their signature red
jackets — and the organization
still boasts 150 local
members, Sliwa claimed.
If elected to City Hall,
Sliwa says his time at the
helm of the Guardian Angels
would help him lower
crime and reinvigorate the
city’s police force — which
Sliwa believes is caught up
in nefarious behavior.
“They’re not wearing
their hats, they’re constantly
clustered up, sexting
or texting,” he said of
today’s cops. “We need cops
in the neighborhood serving
as a visual deterrent, which
they’re not now.”
Sliwa says his law enforcement
priorities include
increasing police presence,
eliminating ticket quotas,
encouraging cops to patrol
in small groups rather than
idling in large clusters, and
working to mend policecommunity
relations.
The red-beret-wearing
watchman is also be a
staunch advocate for rolling
back bail reform so that
it doesn’t apply to violent
crimes — although he’s in
favor of eliminating cash
bail for low-level offenses.
“I’m the only candidate
who’s been locked up 77
times, so I know how the system
can screw the accused,”
he said, referencing his multiple
arrests during his time
as an unregulated vigilante.
“No cash bail makes a lot of
sense, but we were promised
it would be for non-violent
crimes.”
But lowering crime isn’t
the only policy priority a
potential Sliwa Administration
would take on.
To remedy the city’s $3.9
billion public housing crisis,
Sliwa believes that tenants
of the New York City Housing
Authority should be able
to buy their units at subsidized
rates, reducing the
costs of upkeep and repairs,
he claimed.
“With ownership will
come more self-esteem, more
pride, more involvement,”
Sliwa said. “It will become
a much better run operation
in which the tenants have a
stake in their future and in
the running of the housing
complexes.”
Now, the advocate enters
an uphill battle to replace
the city’s lame-duck chief
executive Bill de Blasio —
needing to win both the Republican
mayoral primary
in June 2021, and the general
election against the likely-favored
Democratic nominee
the following November.
But fi rst, Sliwa will
have to overcome his own
host of scandals that would
surely be brought to light
during a citywide political
contest.
In the Guardian Angels’
early years, Sliwa faked six
crimes so that the group
would gain publicity – a fact
he admitted and said he still
regrets.
“It was wrong then, and
it is wrong now,” he told the
Brooklyn Paper.
Former Angels claimed
that Sliwa also exaggerated
the group’s membership and
staged many other crimes
he didn’t disclose, a 1992
New York Times article reported.
Sliwa, however, maintains
that the allegations
aren’t true.
“There’s no doubt there
was six,” he said. “There
weren’t other incidences,
and I didn’t fake membership.”
In 2017, the watchmen
was arrested outside City
Hall while attempting to
serve Bill de Blasio with
court papers for an alleged
infraction of election law.
Sliwa also made headlines
for his love affair with
Queens District Attorney
Melinda Katz in 2013, when
Sliwa’s ex-wife sued him for
funneling money to Katz
while they were still married.
Sliwa and Katz dated
for a few years after that, before
splitting in an equally
public falling out.
HAIL MARY
Guardian Angels founder
Curtis Sliwa to run for mayor
BY KEVIN DUGGAN
Two people were injured
after a black SUV smashed
into a building on Bond
Street on March 13, according
to authorities.
The vehicle was driving
southbound on Bond Street
at 11:50 am when another
silver car made a left turn
from Livingston Street —
ramming into the SUV and
sending it fl ying onto the
sidewalk, witnesses said.
“The black car was going
straight, and the silver one
was turning,” said Raheem
Allah, who claims the silver
car’s motorist was speeding
to make the light. “The guy
tried to beat the light.”
The black car struck a
pedestrian before smashing
into the facade of the coffee
shop Devoción, pinning the
pedestrian under the car,
witnesses said.
First responders rushed
the pedestrian and another
person to Methodist Hospital
for treatment, where
they are both expected to
survive, a Fire Department
spokesman said.
No arrests have yet been
made, cops said.
The car came to a rest against a coffe shop. Photo by Rose Adams