Guardian Angels keeping watch on Huntington Station

Three men walk single file down Lowndes Avenue, the only sound the crunch of fallen leaves beneath their boots. Wearing their trademark red jackets and berets, they stop near a streetlight at the corner of Tower Street and look around.

All is clear and quiet.

Sometimes on foot, sometimes in a minivan, they continue to patrol Huntington Station for the next several hours, with the same result: Everything seems calm.

"It's a quiet night," says Zeek Gavares, the team leader on this Friday evening. "But that doesn't mean nothing is happening. And that's what we are on the lookout for: something about to pop off."

The Guardian Angels have been patrolling Huntington Station since mid-October at the invitation of William Spencer, a surgeon who chairs the Huntington Housing Coalition. The hope is that the famed, unarmed citizens crime patrol group will help keep law and order in a community where gang arrests, violent crime and the July closing of the Jack Abrams School have attracted the attention of police, elected officials and the media.

Focus on high-crime areas

The Angels, who also are recruiting local residents to join them, have focused their patrols on what Suffolk County police have identified as high-crime areas: the neighborhood around Lowndes and Tower, a 10-block area south of the Long Island Rail Road station, and a third neighborhood between West Oakwood Road and Eighth Avenue. The Angels also patrol the LIRR station.

County Executive Steve Levy says the group has been responsible and cooperative with police, adding, "Their additional eyes and ears can only prove helpful."

Cisco Barbosa, a Huntington Station resident who has joined the still-forming local chapter, says the Angels' role is supplemental to police.

"The area is not that bad," Barbosa said. "But I think when people see us, especially young people, they will see us as role models, people who are standing up for a better way of life."

Police Commissioner Richard Dormer says violent crime in Huntington Station from July to October was down 46 percent compared with the same period in 2009. He attributes the drop to increased police presence in the hamlet since October 2009. As for the Guardian Angels, he says, "Any time we get eyes and ears out there who will call the police if they see something, it's a good thing. I see them as a plus."

So far, eight residents have committed to joining, Spencer says, and are being trained in self-defense, first aid, CPR and legal issues. Spencer calls the Angels an "alternative to gangs" and says they are "offering kids the chance to become part of something bigger."

The New York City members of the Angels have said they will patrol at least through the end of the year, when they hope to hand over operations to a local chapter.

"This is a chance for everyone in Huntington to come and help," said new recruit Anthony Tolda, 29, of Huntington. "It's the right thing to do."

Training new recruits

The uneventful Friday night earlier this month starts with self-defense training at the Gateway Gardens complex on Lowndes Avenue, home of the Huntington Housing Authority.

Later, with the temperature hovering in the 30s, LIRR workers and the train station's coffee shop manager greet the Angels warmly. They watch over a young woman on a cell phone dragging a suitcase through a deserted, poorly lit parking lot, then make sure a young man - who seems under the influence and has just missed his train - does not fall onto the tracks.

"We're here to help any way we can," Gavares, 41 said. "Not just to stop crime." The Queens native is a full-time volunteer who joined the group in 1989, he said, to give back to his community. The married father lives in the Bronx, has volunteered in Queens and Brooklyn and is on the group's travel team that aids local Angels nationwide.

Around 10 p.m., as the trio passes through the station's plaza, Tom Moroughan, a taxi driver and Huntington Station resident, says to no one in particular, "It's an unnecessary time of day for them to be here. They need to come at, like, 3 or 4 in the morning when stuff is really happening."

When told of the comment later, Gavares immediately replies, "Join us. He should come help us out."

Julia Hern - who is standing on the platform and says she uses the train four or five times a week, often at night - says their presence can't hurt.

"Just in case something happens it's nice to know they would be around," Hern says. "Especially for women."

Back near Lowndes and Tower around 11:30, Gavares straightens up as a group of teens suddenly appears and walks across the Jack Abrams parking lot. He relaxes when a basketball comes into sight.

"At most they are trespassing," Gavares says. "They're just out to shoot some hoops and have some fun." Sitting in the minivan, he invites them to join the Angels.

Their replies are tepid. Some greet him with stony silence, coupled with a quizzical stare.

Gavares tries to entice them to come to the next training session with promises of boxing and martial arts lessons. The boys are less than enthusiastic.

"If they are in a gang, I say, 'What can we do just to get you out?' " Gavares says as he drives away. "Come be a part of something positive. But you don't have to be in a gang to join us, either."