Guardian Angels founder to speak at anti-gang forum

Here’s a message for the “Uzi-toting, dope-sucking, psychopathic killing machines” in San Jose: Curtis Sliwa’s comin’ back to town.

The fire-breathing founder of the Guardian Angels, the red-beret, grass-roots patrols that watch over crime-plagued neighborhoods, is bringing his Brooklyn-forged, no-nonsense take on rising South Bay gang violence.

“This whole North versus South gang thing, we gotta talk to the community and see what we can do out here,” said Sliwa, in a tough-guy New Yawk patois. “In essence I’m gonna be an archaeologist describing the hieroglyphics on Egyptian tombs.”

The 53-year-old anti-crime crusader is coming next week to San Jose and will be talking about starting a new Angels chapter in the South Bay – the first since a short-lived, ingloriously ended tenure in the late 1980s.

And no doubt, the New York city radio host will bring his patented rail against what he sees as a pervasive, spreading gang culture that glorifies gangsta rap ethic like, “Snitches get stitches and end up in ditches.”

In dealing with gangs, Sliwa sees himself as a liaison between investigators and the people in the community with “cotton balls in their ears and window shades across their eyes and zippers across their mouths.”

Assistant San Jose Police Chief Dan Katz said if Sliwa forms a new local chapter of the Guardian Angels, he hopes it will work closely with the community and the Mayor’s Gang Task Force.

Temple gets involved

After reading a Mercury News story in December about the growing bloodshed between Norteños and Sureños, officials at Temple Emanu-El, a Reform Jewish Synagogue, decided to tackle the issue of gang violence.

“In many respects, it’s almost our religious duty,” said Jonathan Hirshon, who sits on the synagogue’s board of directors. “Our rabbi is very active in the community. When he sees a problem, he tries to fix it. This falls into our bailiwick.”

Hirshon, who organizes the Brotherhood Distinguished Speaker series, isn’t lobbying for the Guardian Angels to open a South Bay chapter.

The synagogue leadership just wants to provide a forum for Sliwa to discuss how the Angels could help San Jose in the fight against gang violence. Sliwa will be joined by local gang prevention leaders in the Feb. 23 public round table meeting.

“We do have an amazing program in place,” Hirshon said of the task force. “We can look to the Angels as another opportunity, another arrow in the quiver.”

Meanwhile, Sliwa said he is looking forward to coming to San Jose as part of a West Coast tour. He will also be in Oakland to “graduate” a chapter of Guardian Angels there.

“I’ve been to East Palo Alto. One square mile of rock ’em, sock ’em. Especially compared to Palo Alto, across the tracks there. I’m aware of Story and King. That was a problem back in the eighties. Now it’s spread from the East Side into other parts of the city.”

Sliwa – and his 5,000 volunteers – have faced danger: Crips, Bloods, Latin Kings, you name it.

In the South Bay, where displaying the wrong color can mean death – Norteños: red, Sureños: blue – Sliwa is unconcerned about Guardian Angels donning their famous red berets and jackets. “People can tell we’re not gang members, because of the berets and all the other trappings that we wear,” said Erick Wong, coordinator of Angels’ chapters in California. “I’ve never had any major problems with our colors.”

As Sliwa says: “The gang-bangers didn’t invent the color. They don’t have a trademark.”

Testosterone-heavy

Sliwa said his message was not site-specific. It was to talk about the dangerous allure of the street – one that continuously generates gang membership from the South Bronx to San Jose.

The gabby Guardian Angel, who survived an alleged assassination attempt by Mafia don John Gotti, joyfully launched into his black-belted broadsides against gang-banging like he was on his early morning radio show and he was blasting liberals as cut-and-run wimps.

“These kids, 75 pounds soakin’ wet, they see people part like the Red Sea, like they’re Moses, when they walk by,” Sliwa said. “This is the most exciting time in their life. These are young men with high levels of testosterone crashing through their cranium. They want to be titillated. They want to be like rebels without a cause. They want to make that video game real. But it has a quick end.

“They think the power comes from the barrel of the gun,” Sliwa said. “Look at us. No weapons, no guns, no knives, no bullet proof vests. Who is more of a man?”