In communities where crime rates are high, it may be necessary for citizens to step up, help defend their community and encourage community members away from crime. This is where the Guardian Angels have stepped in.
The Guardian Angels is a non-profit organization founded in New York City in 1979. It was originally created as a volunteer task force of 13 individuals who would ride the subway through the city. Their goal was to assure the safety of those who rode the subway trains which were considered unsafe at the time.
The task force has grown substantially and has volunteers currently located around the world in 130 cities and 13 countries, stretching from the United States to Japan to Brazil.
Their mission is to safeguard communities and create a path for action that is not reliant on the government. They want to help everyone find empowerment and a better opportunity for their life and community.
The Guardian Angels patrol communities and make citizen’s arrests. They learn self-defense skills and teach those skills to others. They also educate those in at-risk communities about self-help strategies. They see these self-help lessons as solving community problems at their core by promoting self-reliance in individuals. This philosophy allows for people to rely on their own skills to protect themselves and their community, rather than depending on their government.
An event that has made this group potentially controversial in recent years is the neighborhood block watch. This watch was created in Baltimore after the death of Freddie Gray in 2015. Gray was a Black male who was killed due to fatal neck and spine injuries sustained while being arrested and put in the back of a police wagon.
Riots soon broke out in response to his death across Baltimore on the day of Gray’s funeral. Protestors clashed with police, shops were looted and burned and a city-wide curfew was implemented.
The reaction of the Guardian Angels in Baltimore was to create a neighborhood watch in response to the increase in violence and crime. The neighborhood watch program formed a partnership with the Baltimore Police Department and other government officials of the city. The goal of the neighborhood watch was to give back to their community and help make it safer.
The case of Gray rings eerily similar to the horrific death of George Floyd, as is common with so many police brutality cases. The reports recount Gray pleading for officers to help him and stating that he could not breathe. This year, mass protests have occurred across the country since Floyd’s death and the deaths of countless other individuals who have been killed as a result of police brutality.
In Denver, the reaction by the Guardian Angels has been to position Angels at polling stations during the election season. In a Facebook post by the Angels, they state the reason for this position is because there have been protests and clashes with police in the past at polling stations. Angels have also been present at Black Lives Matter events.
The Angels have aligned themselves with police departments to protect communities, despite public outcry against the police. The controversy highlights that this partnership is in direct contrast to their ideal of self-reliance instead of reliance on the government.
The founder of the Guardian Angels, Curtis Sliwa, stated his opinion in June during an interview. He claimed the police needed to be listened to more by public officials in order for cities to be protected. In the interview, Sliwa said that the protests in New York City in the 1960s had led to a white flight: “There had been a series of urban riots, which led to looting and burning down buildings.” He also stated that public officials should lend more support to law enforcement to crack down on the protests and riots because “the cops have remained impotent.”
The Angels have admitted to being a conservative paramilitary group. Working with communities to protect individuals using self-reliance and self-help skills has helped create safer communities. But their reactions to the New York City protests in the 1960s, the Baltimore protests in 2015 and the 2020 Black Lives Matter Protests show the group’s true beliefs: the idea that these protests create crime and violence. The Guardian Angels want peaceful communities, and they see individuals protesting government as a threat to that peace. The Guardian Angels prefer quiet over the right for individuals to speak their minds.
