The Guardian Angels will begin recruiting and patrolling in Riverhead in two weeks, organization Curtis Sliwa said after a meeting with Riverhead Police brass Tuesday evening.
Following the meeting with Chief David Hegermiller and Lt. Sean Egan at Riverhead Police headquarters, Sliwa and Guardian Angel East End coordinator Benjamin Garcia took a tour of the area with Egan.
According to Sliwa, Chief David Hegermiller said he’d look into getting permission for the Guardian Angels to use the vacant Riverhead train station building as a headquarters, training center and patrol dispatch point.
The Guardian Angels intended to begin patrols in Riverhead in February, but plans were hampered by severe weather and conflicts in Sliwa’s schedule that made it difficult to set up a kickoff meeting in Riverhead until yesterday, Sliwa said.
Hegermiller has appointed a sergeant to be the department’s liaison to the group.
The police chief and town officials have said they welcome the Guardian Angels presence in Riverhead and initially met with Sliwa to discuss patrols back in December. Supervisor Sean Walter says he believes their presence will not only help stem gang activity but will help protect Riverhead’s Hispanic community. After a string of muggings and attacks on Hispanic men in downtown Riverhead last year, Walter said he was worried the community would turn to gangs for protection.
“I need to protect them from crime and I need to protect them from gang members as well,” Walter said.
On Monday afternoon, a Hispanic man reported being hit on the head with a baseball bat by a mugger who he said took $300 cash from him on West Main Street. The 27-year-old Flanders man suffered a cut on the back of his head and was transported by Riverhead Volunteer Ambulance Corps to Peconic Bay Medical Center. Town police detectives, assisted by a state police K9 unit, searched unsuccessfully for the reported assailant, described by the complainant as a black male about 30 years old, who fled east on Main Street, according to the complainant. Riverhead Police later said their investigation could not substantiate that a robbery had actually occurred.
Walter said yesterday the man reporting the incident “was so intoxicated he really didn’t know what had happened to him or how he got the cut on his head.”
The supervisor says he’s worried about the potential for street gangs to “fill a vacuum” for young Latino men who are “detached from their families.” They are “marginalized by the community,” Walter said. “They don’t have the support structure of family here.”
He hopes the Guardian Angels will be “a more targeted influence” to help prevent gang affiliations before they happen.”
The Guardian Angels have been patrolling Greenport streets since November, following a gang-related shooting in Southold in October. One of the men charged in the Southold shooting was subsequently charged in a shooting in downtown Riverhead a week prior to the one in Southold.
Sliwa says there is plenty of evidence of MS-13 and 18th Street gang activity in Greenport in the form of mob-style shakedowns of Hispanic business owners, graffiti and violence.
The gangs are directly linked to Riverhead, which he characterized as “the epicenter of the street gang activity that plagues the area.” The county jail — “where there are some 300 gangbangers mixed into the inmate population” — is a major reason why Latino gangs have put down roots in Riverhead, he said, and its central location makes it a natural conduit for travel to points east or west.
The Guardian Angels will recruit local residents for patrols through programs and services run by church-related groups, such as the North Fork Hispanic Apostolate, Sliwa said — just as it’s done in Greenport. The response from the community has been very good, he said.
Sliwa said his organization is looking forward to getting patrols underway in Riverhead and he’s glad to have the cooperation and assistance of the town and its police force. The organization initially faced resistance from Greenport Village officials and Southold Town Police.
The Guardian Angels founder was very pleased with the reception he and Garcia got from Riverhead police.
“Things couldn’t be better,” he said.
The survival of local journalism depends on your support.
We are a small family-owned operation. You rely on us to stay informed, and we depend on you to make our work possible. Just a few dollars can help us continue to bring this important service to our community.
Support RiverheadLOCAL today.
