Guardian Angels begin Morningside Park patrols at the request of the park’s nearby residents after Tessa Majors’ death
By Rachel O'Brien and Sara Dorn
New York Post
December 21, 2019
Would-be criminals in Morningside Park are seeing red — the crimson jackets and berets of the Guardian Angels, who began patrolling the increasingly violent green space Saturday.
The stabbing death of Barnard College freshman Tessa Majors, allegedly by three teenage boys, has prompted residents to call the group seeking help within the 30-acre park, Guardian Angels founder Curtis Sliwa told The Post.
Neighbors griped about young perpetrators committing robberies, assaults and harassment, Sliwa said. The park is bounded by 110th Street to the south, 123rd Street to the north, Morningside Avenue to the east, and Morningside Drive to the west.
“There has been lethargic, impotent police response and the person responsible for that is the mayor,” Sliwa said.
“It seems the police’s attitude has been, ‘They’re juveniles, what do you want us to do?’” he claimed.
“That to me just fuels other teenagers to look at that and realize, ‘We can go on a robbery spree.’ That really has to be dealt with,” he said.
About 20 Guardian Angels gathered Saturday, one group going into the park to patrol, the second heading to the nearby Columbia University campus. They handed out flyers with a photo of one of the suspects in Majors’ Dec. 11 killing.
“If you’re a juvenile, you know this is the place to go,” Sliwa told his volunteers before the group dispersed, standing near the steps at Morningside Drive and West 116th Street where Majors’ body was found. “The cops don’t want to go up and down these stairs here.”
There were 11 robberies in Morningside Park in the first nine months of 2019, making it the most dangerous park in the city for muggings, according to NYPD statistics. That’s compared to 10 reported muggings in Brooklyn’s Prospect Park and nine in Claremont Park in The Bronx.
There has been an 82 percent spike in reports of violent crime and sex crimes in the park and surrounding streets in the past year ending Dec. 8, according to the NYPD.
There were no marijuana sale or possession arrests in Morningside Park and on its perimeter this year, according to NYPD arrest stats through September and posted to the city’s OpenData portal. There were at least six pot arrests in 2017, the last full year before the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office announced it would stop prosecuting marijuana smoking and possession cases.
Sergeants Benevolent Association President Ed Mullins claimed Majors was in the park to buy marijuana, an allegation critics and the Majors family blasted as victim-blaming.
A spokeswoman for Mayor de Blasio demanded an apology from Sliwa, slamming his remarks as “incredibly disrespectful to the hardworking men and women of the NYPD.”
EDITOR'S NOTE: Sliwa does not owe the NYPD any apology. He was not attacking the cops, he was attacking de Blasio.
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