Guardian Angels to expand on LI to fight gang ‘cancer’

The Guardian Angels announced plans Thursday for a community-based approach across Brentwood, Central Islip and North Bay Shore to help “extract the cancer” that is MS-13 plaguing the area.

In September, the Guardian Angels started a local chapter after the bodies of two teenage girls, Kayla Cuevas, 16, and her best friend, Nisa Mickens, 15, were found in Brentwood, crimes that rocked the community. Curtis Sliwa says the local chapter has 12 active members, and his goal is to have 48 to 60 members.

Sliwa, founder of the group whose members don red jackets and berets while patrolling crime-ridden streets, told a Thursday night gathering at the Brentwood Public Library that it would take a combination of increased Guardian Angels participants, a wide-cast neighborhood watch and junior Guardian Angels programs aimed at elementary school students to make the efforts effective.

“In your communities the gangs are the cancer,” Sliwa said. “It’s time to work together to eradicate that cancer.”

Sliwa criticized recent plans by local, state and federal officials, saying their approaches to fighting gang violence won’t work. He likened the notoriously violent street gang MS-13 to Italian organized crime and said that law enforcement should employ the same tactics used to take down crime families, such as witness protection programs for those who offer information on the gang to police. Authorities also should come up with incentives for “terrified” residents, such as offering informants green cards, Sliwa said, to get a fearful community to come forward.

“In this immigrant community, people are looking to get a fast track to a green card, to citizenship,” Sliwa said. “If all of a sudden, the government was offering this incentive, this will help us wipe out these gangs.”

Suffolk County police Commissioner Timothy Sini, during testimony Wednesday before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee in Washington, said MS-13 is responsible for 27 murders in the county since 2013 — with 17 of those committed since January 2016.

The gang’s efforts to recruit recently reached a 10-year-old, Sini said, calling the members “savages.” Sini called for a national database of MS-13 members and increased funding for police enforcement, prosecutors and community outreach to help battle the gang’s proliferation, which has reached about 400 members in Suffolk.

On Thursday, Sliwa, along with other leaders, called on adults in the community to get involved in civic programs and “to be positive role models opposed to the negative role models that the gang members are.”

Suffolk County Legis. Monica Martinez (D-Brentwood) said the community “has to plant the seeds” of unity, provide youth with opportunities and knowledge to make good decisions, and create a safer atmosphere.

“We’ve had too many die and killed at the hands of violence,” Martinez said. “I don’t want to offend any parents, but we also need to teach our parents how to be parents.”