Curtis Sliwa
Founder, The Guardian Angels
Curtist Sliwa is an activist and the founder of the Guardian Angels, a volunteer anti-crime organization. Founded in 1979 in New York, the group now leads unarmed safety patrols and spearheads educational programs in over 140 cities around the world. In 1992, Sliwa was ambushed by two gunmen from inside a stolen taxi in New York; he managed to escape but was shot repeatedly. John A. Gotti, son of the late Gambino family crime boss John Gotti, was charged with conspiring to murder Sliwa, but the case ended in a mistrial. Sliwa is currently a conservative radio talk show host.
Big Think Interview With Curtis Sliwa
A conversation with the founder of the Guardian Angels
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19 min
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Parents Should Have to Pass a Parenting Test
“You wouldn’t be able to get married in my society until you were 30,” says Sliwa.
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5 min
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Police Should Be Police—Not Social Workers
Crime is under better control than it was 30 years ago, but recession era cuts to police budgets threaten the status quo.
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4 min
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How to Perform a Citizen’s Arrest
Guardian Angels founder Curtis Sliwa demonstrates three potential scenarios for a wannabe “do-gooder” to perform a citizen’s arrest.
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7 min
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Are Citizen’s Arrests Legal?
Despite what “brainiacs” from the Ivy League may say, Curtis Sliwa insists that citizens arrests have been “embedded in the fabric of the law since the Magna Carta.”
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3 min
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Curtis Sliwa’s Survival Tips
If you’re attacked, the best thing to do is “make the hunter become the hunted,” says Sliwa.
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2 min
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Trapped In a Rolling Coffin
Curtis Sliwa recounts in vivid detail how in 1992 a seemingly normal cab ride turned into a near-death experience, leaving him shot and bleeding on a New York sidewalk.
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6 min
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