Gaurdian Angels coming get warm reception in Vancouver unlike Toronto
CP
Yahoo Canada
Vancouver (CP) - The red berets are getting the red carpet treatment in Vancouver.
The Guardian Angels, a U.S.-based organization that fields red beret-clad volunteers to patrol downtown streets in an effort to deter crime, is setting up a chapter in the West Coast city.
But while the unarmed group is regarded with suspicion by some Canadian police departments worried about vigilantism, Vancouver authorities are enthusiastic.
Guardian Angels founder Curtis Sliwa said a Friday meeting with local police was the most successful yet in Vancouver.
"The best I hoped (for) was a yellow light, I never thought we'd get a green light," he said.
The group is expected to start patrolling Vancouver streets by fall.
City authorities offered to do background checks on people interested in volunteering with the group as well as arrange for an instructor from the police department to teach members about citizens' rights and local laws.
Friday's warm reception contrasted with the reaction the Guardian Angels received when they originally opened a chapter in Vancouver in the late '80s, when police refused to communicate with the group on any level.
However, with the Winter Olympics on their way and Vancouver police complaining of being short-staffed, attitudes have changed.
Insp. John McKay, who met with the Angels, said the city's police department is about 500 officers short. He said it's distressing that Mayor Sam Sullivan is refusing put more money toward new officers despite wanting to keep streets safe leading to the 2010 Games. As a result, police must work closely with security and community groups.
"There ain't enough (police) to clean up the city so we're going to rely on other people," McKay said.
At the meeting with the Angels, McKay told Sliwa that as long as volunteers obey the law, they will be welcome to patrol city streets.
The volunteer group, which started in New York in 1979, received a hostile reception from Toronto officials when they began to set up a chapter in March.
Toronto police Chief Bill Blair accused the Angels of using the "same shtick" in every city in North America plagued by violence - turning concerns over violence into a way of making money. The Angels deny the claim.
"In Toronto I got the fleabag treatment - I might as well have been a terrorist of Al-Qaida," Sliwa said.
The group has since started recruiting volunteers in Calgary and Edmonton - where the police chief was also critical - and is eyeing Winnipeg.
Not everyone in Vancouver has been as receptive to the Guardian Angels as police.
City Coun. David Cadman has said that when police presence, Downtown Business Improvement Association staff and community policing volunteers are considered, Vancouver's streets are well-covered.
He said he prefers the idea of a group started within the city, rather than one's imported from the United States.
While in Calgary, Sliwa wrestled away a crack pipe from a woman in a park and crushed it under his boot.
Cadman said Sliwa admitted he would use the same approach in Vancouver's drug-ridden Downtown Eastside.
"Should we be encouraging groups with a style and an approach from away, who import their style and approach and confrontation?
"When an altercation occurs as a consequence of that and somebody is hurt, and the police have to attend, have we solved the problem or have we created a problem?"
David Toner offered to volunteer as a consultant for the Angels when he heard an ad for them on a local radio station.
He felt his background in security would benefit the group but wanted join for personal reasons. Last year, his Matthew was beaten to death in a random attack outside a transit station.
Toner shrugs off criticism of the group.
"There have been bits of controversy in the past but if you look at their track record, operating over the last 27 years, there's never been a member of the Guardian Angels who's ever been charged or convicted of any crime in relation to their duty," he said. "Police forces can't even make that same claim."
