Fuad Squad stepping in where angels fear to tread

FOOLS step in where angels fear to tread but does this phrase apply to the newly formed Guardian Angels (GA) group whose genesis was announced some two weeks ago by United National Congress (UNC) Member of Parliament, Dr Fuad Khan? The Opposition MP attributed the reason for the GA’s formation to the Government’s seeming inability to deal with crime in TT. Khan said the GA would comprise persons between the ages of 15 to 18, who would carry out anti-kidnapping and anti-crime manoeuvres, including surveillance operations.

He also indicated that the “Angels” would be trained in martial arts and that he had written to Police Commissioner Hilton Guy asking that the GAs be trained in the use of firearms. To date, there has been no reply from the Commissioner to Khan’s request. According to the UNC parliamentarian, the small size of the Anti-Kidnapping Squad (AKS) makes it difficult for the police to effectively handle all kidnapping incidents and there was need for some form of  “divine intervention” to deal with the scourge of kidnapping. He claimed the group had received the blessing of UNC Political Leader Basdeo Panday, the San Juan Businessmen Association and even “some” members of the Police Service. However up to this day, no one knows who Angels are or whether they can help take a bite out of crime in Trinidad and Tobago. Khan said his group was modelled after a similar organisation based in New York but according to UNC chairman Wade Mark, Khan never told the party’s leadership much about that organisation or whether he had consulted with them in forming his Angels.

The original GAs had their genesis 24 years ago on February 13, 1979. Their founder was a man named Curtis Sliwa, a former night manager of the McDonalds Fordham Road outlet in the South Bronx, New York. Sliwa was famous for his clean-up and beautification projects in the South Bronx. The elderly often sought refuge in the McDonalds, knowing that Sliwa and his co-workers would walk them home safely. When a retired transit worker pleaded with Sliwa to do something about muggers and street thugs, he decided to expand his “Rock Brigade” clean-up and pride programme to patrol the subway and the “Muggers Express” was born. Recruiting a team of multi-racial volunteers from the ranks of his own workforce, Sliwa and his team “agreed to ride the subways between the toughest stops, without weapons, to find the gang members who had been mugging the straphangers and detain them for the police to arrest.”

From this group, known as the “Magnificent Thirteen”, the GAs were born in 1980 and commenced their first safety patrols of the New York area. The objectives of these patrols were to be a visual deterrent to criminal activity; act as positive roles within the community; provide extra eyes and ears for law enforcement and to report all suspicious activity; to intercede and assist civilians and exercise the right to perform citizen’s arrests. However the GAs have always maintained that the latter objective is not their primary role. The GA website section on Civil Law/Citizen Arrest Training clearly states: “The GAs have no special powers of arrest. Making a citizen’s arrest and detaining someone until the police arrive is the right of all Americans as well as the right of the people of many other countries. Making a citizen’s arrest within the boundaries of your country does not make you a vigilante; it makes you an upstanding heroic citizen. A vigilante is someone who makes the decision over guilt or innocence and administers the punishment as well. GAs are not vigilantes. The decision over guilt or innocence can only be made by a court of law, which also has the power to decide the penalty for any crime committed. These decisions cannot be made legally by the GAs, nor by a peace officer or a police officer. GAs are accountable to the laws of the countries that we operate in just as everyone else.”

Persons who form part of GA safety patrols are trained in a number of self-defence skills. These include a wide array of martial arts systems such as the Japanese grappling arts of aikido, jujitsu and judo; Chinese Wing Chun Kung Fu, western wrestling, Brazilian jujitsu, Thailand Muay Thia kickboxing and the Filipino art of Kali.  However it is to be noted that despite this type of training, the GAs do not see themselves as vigilantes. The GA website section on Martial Arts training states: “Safety is a top priority in GA training and we are not impressed with overly aggressive types of behaviour. Machismo or machisma are poor qualities in a true warrior. To become a GA, you do not need to be Bruce Lee or his sister. A positive attitude, a willingness to learn and a desire to help others are the qualities that we are looking for.” 

Potential applicants must satisfy certain criteria to join the GA with one of the most important being that “no applicant convicted of any serious felony or any sexual offences shall be considered for membership.”  Today the GA has a membership of over 5,000 volunteers in 60 cities and five countries around the world. Things have hardly been a walk in the park for the GA and since their inception, six of their members have been killed in street violence. GA founder Curtis Sliwa himself has also been marked for death by criminal elements on three occasions. In 1992, Sliwa was attacked by a gang of bat-wielding thugs outside his Brooklyn home and then five weeks later, was wounded in five places by a gunman while he was seated in a taxi. The most recent attempt on his life took place in June 2002, when Sliwa was ambushed as he entered as taxi near his home. Shot in both legs, his chest and back, Sliwa survived by  leaping from the moving vehicle and slammed into another car as he did so. He underwent several operations and through the sheer force of will, recovered in record time. Today, the GA has shifted its crime prevention focus to programmes dealing with safety education, inner-city children and Internet safety programmes.

Mark said the GA or any other crime watch groups which UNC MPs form in their constituencies would operate strictly within the tenets of the law. This was reiterated by GA public relations specialist Anderson Morris who told Sunday Newsday that the GAs “are not involved in intervention” in any type of crime. Using the Barataria/San Juan unit as an example, Morris said the group comprises approximately 60 persons and none of these persons are under the age of 15. “We do not accept anyone under 15,” he stated. The GA official claimed that a 60-year-old woman came to him recently to volunteer her services. Morris explained that these individuals operate in clusters of four which are headed by 15 “operations chiefs”. These “chiefs”, according to Morris, are trained in the surveillance techniques and the use of surveillance equipment. Morris claimed that these “chiefs” have trained GA members to be able to differentiate between criminal and non-criminal activities. He said the GA also has a network of undercover operatives in several key institutions and this was how the group was able to detect the alleged “new dimension to the spate of kidnapping in Trinidad and Tobago” in the postal service. Morris said this “discovery” was made two weeks earlier and the information was forwarded to head of the AKS, Snr Supt Gilbert Reyes. A source at the AKS said they were not aware of it but they would look at it.

The GA official conceded that the group’s investigations into the matter are far from conclusive. Morris also indicated that the GA operations are being advised by two sergeants in the Police Service. On the response of the police to the GA and their operations, Morris claimed that while some “feel jittery”, there is support within the Police Service for their work. Morris said he receives information from the public about suspected criminal activities and he then forwards it to the GA’s “nerve centre” in Barataria/San Juan. However the GA official said he could not disclose the centre’s location for security reasons.

Finances for the GA’s operations, Morris continued, come by way of donations from individual businesspeople and are used for “operational expenses” which include things such as equipment and meals. He added that GA volunteers use their own vehicles to undertake surveillance operations and are urged not to do anything to draw attention to themselves. This was aptly reflected when Morris turned down Sunday Newsday’s request for photos of the GA and the manner in which they function. “I don’t think Dr Khan would like that,” he stated. In sharp contrast, the real GA are highly visible both inside and outside of the United States with its founder Sliwa hosting a regular radio programme in New York and speaking at several public fora on the work of the GA. Morris said public response to the GA to date has been good because people are confident the information they supply will be confidential and this information is only sent to the police once it has been “vetted and ratified”.

Morris added that the local Angels have contacted the original GA in New York and have received their blessing to use their name and logo. He claimed GA units have been also formed in the UNC constituencies of Pointe-a-Pierre, Fyzabad, Oropouche and Chaguanas and in the People’s National Movement (PNM)-controlled constituency of San Fernando West. Port-of-Spain North/St Ann’s West MP John Rahael last week turned down a request by Khan to establish a GA group in his constituency. Both Khan and Morris have denied that the GA was formed either as a public relations gimmick or a means whereby the UNC could get some kind of political mileage in advance of the upcoming Local Government Elections which some political pundits suspect could be called in June. Government has up until July 12 to announce an election date. The Opposition has been consistently condemning Government for its handling of crime and is refusing to support key pieces of legislation (including the Anti-Kidnapping and Police Reform Bills) until there is constitutional reform.

Asked why the GA decided to publicise its allegations about a kidnapping link in the postal service instead of reporting it first to the police, Morris said this was done to alert members of the public. He added that if the information was sent to the police first, it was possible that time would have passed before any action was taken on the matter. Prime Minister Patrick Manning meanwhile has expressed skepticism about the modus operandi of the local GA dubbed in some quarters of the society as the “Fuad Squad”.  The Prime Minister said he hoped that Fuad’s “Angels” would not operate as a vigilante group and reiterated Government’s confidence in the ability of the police to deal with kidnapping and other types of crime.  At a dinner hosted by the San Juan Businessmen’s Association on Thursday in Trincity, Khan insisted that his Angels were not vigilantes and persons with a political agenda were trying to paint them in this light. However in the same breath, the UNC MP went on to allege that underworld elements from PNM-controlled areas were behind the criminal activities, including kidnapping, in his constituency. All of this begs the question whether the “Fuad Squad” is the answer to the prayers of a population fatigued by crime or a means whereby some are hoping a political resurrection could occur in the near or distant future? We await the day of judgment.