A shocking new video shows alleged looters throwing a bike as they attacked Guardian Angels who were protecting a Foot Locker store in Manhattan last week.
The citizen crime-fighting group had manned the entrances to stores across the SoHo neighborhood after looters were seen breaking in amid the ongoing protests over the death of George Floyd.
The group’s founder Curtis Sliwa, 66, claims they headed off hundreds of looters on June 2, as the Foot Locker was attacked in three waves throughout the night.
New video reveals what Sliwa alleged to be the second wave that hit around 10pm, showing the Guardian Angels going toe-to-toe in a brawl with those approaching the store.
The Guardian Angels are shown in a new video fending off alleged looters from a Foot Locker in Manhattan on June 2. An angry confrontation erupts in which a bike is thrown
Curtis Sliwa, the founder and CEO of the Guardian Angels, pictured left, said that new footage shows his civilian crime-fighting group being attacked by looters at a Foot Locker on June 2
The group of alleged looters is seen at the start of the video pushing the Guardian Angels back as other peaceful demonstrators walk by.
A bike is then thrown at one of the Guardian Angels before a passing protester steps in the way to ward off those hurling items at the Guardian Angels.
The first group of troublemakers quickly move on as more protesters stand in front of the Guardian Angels to protect them.
Other demonstrators marching in the crowd begin to throw trash bags from the other side of the street, however.
The aftermath shows the civilian safety patrol surrounded by trash bags as they are interviewed by the media and demonstrators continue to pass by.
Sliwa has claimed that the group seen on the attack in the video were attempting to get inside the Foot Locker at Broadway and Washington Place because of limited edition sneakers.
‘There was a whole demonstration walking by and the looters were in the crowd,’ he told the New York Post.
One of the alleged looters can be seen here to the right readying a bike to throw at the civilian safety patrol which placed itself outside stores last week to guard against damage
A member of the Guardian Angels is seen here blocking a trash bag thrown at them
Other protesters stood in front of the Guardian Angels to try and stop the confrontation
He said the Guardian Angels were faced with prospective looters three times through the night, at 8pm, 10pm and 11pm.
‘It had happened a first time and they said they were coming back. As bad as this one was, the next one was worse,’ he said of the video showing the second lot of alleged looters.
Sliwa said he took a hit in the jaw with a hammer during the melee that held off three waves of ‘thugs’.
He claimed victory after the confrontation with the looters, although the clash did cost Guardian Angel Aram Sabet vision in his left eye when he suffered a broken eye socket and broken nose. His injuries required 48 stitches.
Curtis Sliwa said he and his Guardian Angels clashed with hundreds of looters as they tried to steal from a Foot Locker athletic shoe store in New York’s Soho neighborhood after George Floyd protests on June 2. He is pictured after the confrontation in a televised interview
Sliwa said the safety patrol remained protecting the store until the looters made their return. They are pictured outside the store from a social media post made by Mohamad Bazzi
In the footage, a man in a red jacket appears to be pushed out of the store in the confrontation
‘They literally surrounded us,’ he told ABC 7, estimating the number of people by this point in the confrontation had risen to 150.
Sliwa was left with a linear fracture in his jaw, but still claimed a win.
‘It was an all out. They did not gain a foot. They did not gain a yard,’ Sliwa said during an interview with Fox News, about the confrontation.
He said he was with about six Guardian Angels when they learned around 8pm Tuesday that looters were spotted targeting the FootLocker. When they arrived, Sliwa said they found about 35 people stealing from the store.
The Guardian Angels were able to get the looters to drop what they had stolen and chased them away. Sliwa said the safety patrol then remained protecting the store until the looters made their return.
‘They came back for a second bite of the apple,’ he said, describing the group which had returned about two hours later and is shown in the video numbering as high as 100 people.
Guardian Angels are seen standing outside the FootLocker in a social media post made by Matthew Chayes after the confrontation. Sliwa said the group faced three waves of looters
Sliwa claimed victory after the confrontation with the looters, although the clash did cost Guardian Angel Aram Sabet (pictured) vision in his left eye when he suffered a broken eye socket and broken nose. His injuries required 48 stitches
Sliwa’s group, unarmed and trained in martial arts, then faced off a larger and still-determined crowd of looters that returned in a third wave around 10:45 p.m.
‘They came back with a vengeance. It was about 300! No cops in sight,’ Sliwa told Fox News.
‘We fought them and I got hit with a hammer,’ he recalled.
Sliwa said he remembers the looters carrying ball peen hammers and claw hammers, which they used for breaking locks and smashing windows. Again, his Guardian Angels were able to fend off the mob, he said.
‘We know that when you take a stand there, and you make the kind of stand that we do, there’s going to be retribution. There’s going to be retaliation,’ Sliwa said.
‘And you cannot sacrifice an inch of ground,’ he added. ‘Or the whole city goes up.’
Sliwa, who announced he will run for mayor as a Republican in 2021, started the Guardian Angels as an unarmed, crime prevention volunteer organization to combat crime in New York City’s subways.
The group, best known for wearing red berets and red jackets, has since expanded to 130 cities and 13 countries.
Sliwa was critical of the NYPD’s response to similar looting around the city, which had to impose its first curfew in more than 75 years. He has said he will run for mayor in 2021
Sliwa is pictured before the confrontation leading Guardian Angels through New York’s Soho
Sliwa was critical of the NYPD’s response to looting around the city, which imposed its first curfew in more than 75 years to curtail destruction of property.
While Mayor Bill de Blasio insisted the city would put a stop to the violence and vandalism that initially marred largely peaceful mass demonstrations surrounding Floyd’s death, both President Donald Trump and New York Governor Andrew Cuomo laid into the city’s handling of the mayhem.
Cuomo said the mayor was underestimating the problem and the nation’s largest police force wasn’t deployed in sufficient numbers, though the city had said it doubled the usual police presence.
Sliwa also took aim at New York’s ‘no-bail law’, which went into effect at the start of the year.
The law doesn’t require a bond to hold a suspect accused of non-violent felonies, including robbery, a move which many in law enforcement consider ill-advised because it allows for the potential of more crime.
Sliwa similarly said that because of the law, looters arrested are allowed ‘back out on the streets to come loot again.’
Looters shown breaking into the same Foot Locker in SoHo, Manhattan, on June 1, the day before Sliwa’s group stood outside to prevent against further attacks
He said that’s why people who ‘dare to care’ should come forward, as the Guardian Angels have to take a stand against the looters, whom he said also included out-of-towners he noticed who had come in from New Jersey.
‘They gotta fight these thugs and they gotta fight these looters because they think they own our city,’ he said. “I’ll tell them ‘Who’s your daddy. I’m your daddy. Curtis Sliwa.”‘
‘You’re not going to (get) another inch,’ Sliwa said speaking directly to the looters. ‘This is our city. Not your city. And that’s where it ends.’
The curfew in New York City was lifted Sunday night as peaceful protests calling for an end to police brutality and systematic racism continue but earlier violent clashes between police and protesters and scenes of looting came to an end.
George Floyd will be laid to rest in Houston on Tuesday.