Guardian Angels to hold first Canadian orientation meeting

Guardian Angels to hold first Canadian orientation meeting




TORONTO (CP) - The Guardian Angels will hold its first orientation meeting in Canada later this month in Toronto, despite criticism their presence on city streets could incite further violence.

About 600 to 700 volunteers are expected to attend a meeting on Feb. 19, said Lou Hoffer, the Canadian director of the New York City-based street patrol group.

It keeps getting bigger and bigger," said the former Toronto police officer Wednesday, adding that the meeting is the first step in a long-term plan of setting up a permanent presence here.

"We're going to have a strong infrastructure behind this, and that's part of the reason I think that it failed - it didn't work - back in '82 and again in '92."

The unarmed group, known by their red berets, failed to set up a Canadian chapter in 1982 and again in 1992 after a chorus of protests from police and politicians.

Founded in 1979, the Guardian Angels stroll through troubled areas trying to lure gang members away from a life of crime. Members occasionally make citizen's arrests.

They have been criticized by some in the United States and abroad for being naive vigilantes, while others have supported their efforts to make communities safer.

Toronto police Chief Bill Blair and Mayor David Miller rebuffed four members of the unarmed group when they patrolled three crime-ridden neighbourhoods nearly three weeks ago, but the police chief of York Region, north of Toronto, met with them during their visit.

Last year's record number of gun-related murders in Toronto - 52 in all - probably made residents more receptive to the group this time, Hoffer said.

Two weeks ago, Guardian Angels founder Curtis Sliwa said he intends to set up chapters in Calgary and Edmonton, which logged a record 39 homicides last year.

Details of the Toronto meeting are expected later this week.

The group currently has branches in Japan, New Zealand, South Africa, Brazil and England.



Note: I had an apartment in a high crime rate town in Connecticut. Bridgeport Connecticut, they moved in downstairs from me. They where able to live there rent free, stores in the community feed them and paid for their clothes.

They started recruiting area youth to join, and started warfare on the local projects. Some of the worst thugs lived there.

I moved from the area and headed north to upstate NY.