Guardian Angels Founder Curtis Sliwa Talks Role Of Schools, Criminal Justice In MS-13 Takedown

As lawmakers and police focus on Long Island as ground zero for the brutal MS-13 gang, with horrific crimes sweeping the area, Curtis Sliwa, founder of the Guardian Angels, reveals a new plan he's developed, showing authorities how to "rein in" the deadly street thugs.

Sliwa unveiled the first part of his plan in a Patch article Tuesday, focusing on law enforcement and jail.

The heat is on for answers after the gruesome discovery of four bodies in Central Islip on Long Island — the four young men are believed to have been victims of the deadly MS-13 street gang — and the spotlight is on Suffolk County as lawmakers, educators and a horrified public try to shine a light on MS-13 and seek answers on how to stem the tide of escalating violence.

Sliwa, who founded the Guardian Angels, a non-profit volunteer safety patrol organization whose members are known for their trademark red berets, outlined MS-13's migration to Long Island in a previous Patch article.

And now, he's revealing part two of his proposal on how to crack down on MS-13, with the second half of the plan focusing on schools and the criminal justice system. Here is his plan, in his own words:

Schools

"If you want to destroy MS-13 now, cut them off from their ability to recruit and encourage their peer group to work with law enforcement, you must get control of the public school systems where MS-13 has a presence.

"MS-13 loves the public school system because it can send its members into the schools whether they are young adults or the second generation of MS-13 gang bangers with one clear message: 'Recruit, recruit, recruit,'" Sliwa said.

"We provide them with a captive audience, both on the buses that transport the kids to school, the school yards and cafeterias where they congregate, and the classrooms where they spend the bulk of their time. As a young member of MS-13 you can earn your street cred with the leaders of your local MS-13 gang by bringing in more recruits than anyone else. While in school you're also able to shake down and extort the members of the student population for money and valuable information that can be used against other students," he said.

"The school systems are ill prepared to deal with this menace and they have, in the past, ignored the rise of MS-13 in their school populations, both out of fear and a lack of understanding of how this gang works — so differently than their competition.

"It reminds me of the year 2010 when Dr. William Spencer, who is now a Suffolk County legislator, invited the Guardian Angels to patrol the village of Huntington in the aftermath of the school board deciding to close Huntington Station's Jack Abrams Intermediate School because of the growing gang violence in the area. I remember the anger that so many residents had, when shouting out, 'You mean, we're shutting down our schools instead of shutting down our criminals?' At that time I interviewed Suffolk County Executive Steve Levy on WABC Radio about this problem. He suggested a remedy then that could easily work now if the present Suffolk County Executive Steve Bellone would enact it," Sliwa said.

Safe zones and a gang registry

The plan Sliwa said, involves "the concept of safe zones, that would prohibit convicted gang bangers of congregating in certain zones. This was based on the same set of laws that had been upheld constitutionally that was used to prevent Mafia members from congregating with one another after they had been convicted."

In addition, Sliwa said, "He also spoke of forming a gang registry. That list would be shared from top to bottom with every agency and every cop on the beat. For police on patrol, it would provide them with a hook so they could arrest the MS-13 gang banger for simply hanging out with other MS-13 gang bangers, which happens on a daily basis.

"This tool that Bellone rejected should be resurrected to crack down on MS-13," Sliwa said. "You cannot wait for the crime to actually be committed. If MS-13 is hanging out with their fellow MS-13 gang bangers the predicate exists to put them in prison. This statute would apply only to those MS-13 members previously convicted of gang related crimes," Sliwa said.

"Since the only person in Suffolk County who seems to cooperate with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, is Suffolk County Sheriff Vincent F. DeMarco, he should provide a list of every MS-13 member presently incarcerated at the county jail who is here illegally and include them, as well those MS-13 gang bangers who have committed violent crime in Suffolk County over the last five years," Sliwa suggested.

"The sheriff should share it with the U.S. Attorney General, with ICE, with Bellone, and all other existing law enforcement agencies. This MS-13 gang registry should also include those who operate in nearby Nassau County so that wherever they go on Long Island they will be boxed in," he said.

"It starts with the schools"

"But it starts with the schools," Sliwa said. "A gang task force police officer should be assigned to each campus. His or her job will be to compile this list, check the students for MS-13 tattoos, graffiti and signage that may be on their smart phones or carried around in written form. Once identified these students should be sent to a special campus where only MS-13 gang bangers are being educated. They must be kept away from the general student population or they will continue to spread their strength at the taxpayer's expense. Suffolk County Executive Bellone should enact these measures that were put into motion in the final days of his predecessor Steve Levy's term of office."

Criminal justice system

Next, Sliwa addressed the role of the criminal justice system in tackling MS-13.

"MS-13 is the only street gang that rivals the way Italian organized crime was structured. So you must use the same tools that were so effective in weakening the Mafia group La Cosa Nostra. You must start by putting together a witness protection program for those in the immigrant community who want to step forward and identify members of MS-13 who have committed crimes. This would immediately require involvement on the federal level of Attorney General Jeff Sessions and the U.S. Department of Justice, through its U.S. Marshals Service," he said.

"Remember, unlike other street gangs who derive their resource through the sales of drugs and guns, MS-13 collects their tribute mostly through shake downs and extortion of their own immigrant population, that comes from El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala. This has made them a difficult criminal enterprise to crack. But in addition to the federal Marshal's Service moving cooperators into the witness protection program and providing them with new identities and a new residence in Montana, Wyoming, or Idaho, where MS-13 does not roam, it would also be incumbent for Homeland Security and ICE to identify family members of cooperators who might be in danger as a result, in their countries of origin," Sliwa said.

He added, "If it means moving them also, the expense will well be worth breaking the back of this nation's largest street terrorist organization. In addition, if cooperators have been helpful, then they should be offered a path to citizenship with their family members. You would then see how quickly information would be provided in these immigrant communities who right now have taken the code of omerta — or a Mafia code of silence — against MS-13 because they have been threatened that 'snitches will get stitches, and end up in ditches.'"

In addition, Sliwa said a serious effort must be made to recruit both young men and young women in the immigrant community who might be willing to go undercover and join MS-13 in order to develop intelligence and relevant information.

"This would put them at great risk and we, as a society, should reward them accordingly with a path to citizenship and with resources to sustain them and their families," Sliwa said. "Look how long it has taken for arrests to be made in the most recent MS-13 killings — and we are still waiting for arrests in the murders of the four who were recently found in that park in Central Islip."

Sliwa said an internal mechanism must be created, of both cooperators and infiltrators from the Central American community, "who will provide hour-by-hour and day-by-day information about the comings and goings of MS-13.

"When an MS-13 suspect is brought into court for arraignment and prosecution he should be able to look over his shoulder and see a courtroom filled with representatives of law enforcement both at the federal, state, county, and local level. That Polaroid snapshot will get across to this MS-13 member and others that the entirety of the American criminal justice and law enforcement sectors are stacked against them. That will be the perfect time to pull them aside and see if they're prepared to provide badly needed information," Sliwa said.

"And finally, there must be a mechanism created where young men and women from this Central American immigrant community are encouraged to become members of junior police cadet programs. As a result of their participation with law enforcement the cops will have a greater motivation to keep them out of harm's way and to quickly follow up on any threats made against them by MS-13. And they will be a good source of information about MS-13 in their respective communities," he said.

Sliwa has a Junior Guardian Angel program in Washington Heights, which helps to show young people another life other than crime and teaches them martial arts and other lessons in self-empowerment.

Finally, Sliwa said, "there is the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, or RICO, Act that was used so effectively to break the back of organized crime. It simply means that if you had knowledge of a crime being committed, even though you did not participate or direct the actions of the MS-13 gang bangers, you, yourself, can be held culpable and charged with the most serious of crimes. The template is already there. Instead of thinking Mafia, use all the same criminal justice tactics against MS-13 that have proven over time to wither and weaken Mafia-organized crime."

New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo's vow to fight MS-13

On Wednesday, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo headed to the Brentwood State Police Pavilion for a briefing on MS-13.

He was joined by Bellone. "Public safety has been one of my top priorities as Suffolk County executive," Bellone said. "The reality is that we are facing a new threat by a criminal organization that is as brazen as it is brutal in the level of violence and brutality that hit has demonstrated."

Cuomo thanked Bellone and members of law enforcement.

"There is a current scourge going on across the world, but nowhere like on Long Island, posed by MS-13. MS-13 is an international criminal organization, a network that had created horrendous crimes. Their currency is fear and intimidation, and they are getting more outrageous and more obnoxious in their activities," Cuomo said.

The governor said plans are in place for New York State Police to "set up a high intensity gang unit," which will focus on gang activity with intelligence expertise and electronic surveillance equipment, vehicles, aviation and other tools to combat gang violence in "select pockets of the state — and especially on MS-13, on Long Island."

State Police, Cuomo said, will work with the FBI and a Suffolk County task force; there will be additional police personnel to patrol Brentwood and Central Islip.

"MS-13 are thugs. They are thugs who prey on young people and recruit young people, often unaccompanied children from Central America, seducing them into a life of gang violence" that includes robbery, drugs, prostitution, grand larceny and kidnapping," Cuomo said. "Our job is to say to MS-13 —enough is enough. We will not rest until MS-13 is out of business."

Sliwa spoke out on Cuomo's press conference: "His contribution to the effort in cracking down on MS-13 with NYS troopers from elsewhere in the state. He is going to pull them from the NY State Police barracks in Plattsburgh, Oneida, Geneva, and Watkins Glen? You'll have to assign local cops to guide the state troopers around Suffolk County or they'll get lost. Might even have to stop some MS-13 members along the way to make sure their not lost when they're on patrol."

Sliwa also wondered if any would hail from a Central American background, something he believes is critical. "I doubt it. They are going to contribute intelligence expertise and yet they know nothing about MS-13. In fact Cuomo, said the state police will now create 'a high intensity gang unit." So they will be starting from scratch. They have no prior expertise in dealing with MS-13. How does that help?" he asked.

And, he said, Cuomo has said they'd be working with the FBI. "And yet it's ICE and Homeland Security that have their finger on the pulse of the movements of MS-13 across our borders," he said.

The United States Department of Justice, Sliwa said, "has more resources to do the job of cracking down on MS-13 than the combined resources of the state, county and local agencies."

Photos of Curtis Sliwa courtesy of Curtis Sliwa; courtesy photo of New York State Andrew Cuomo from press conference.