Guardian Angels battle looters in New York City, 2 hospitalized
NEW YORK CITY (WABC) -- The Guardian Angels stated goal is to keep order and protect the community, but on Tuesday night, a few members of the group were attacked themselves by looters trying to break into a Manhattan Foot Locker.
One of the Angels sustained injuries so severe he lost sight one eye.
Cell phone video shows a large group of protesters and looters on Broadway in NoHo defying the 8 p.m. curfew.
"They were strictly there to cause as much damage as possible, loot as much as they could," Guardian Angel Aram Sabet said.
Sabet, a true born and bred New Yorker, has been with the organization only nine weeks. He was patrolling near Washington Place with only a flashlight and a whistle, their rule, when the large crowd turned on him and his fellow Angels.
"They literally surrounded us, 150 people, with bats, hammers, crowbars, metal bats," he said.
The looters had their sights set on the sneaker store, and once the Guardian Angels say that plan didn't work, they went a few doors down to the McDonald's to grab whatever they could. And with no police around, it turned into a brawl.
"Three hundred come back, and it's an all-out battle," Guardian Angels founder Curtis Sliwa said. "I get (hit with) a ball hammer. I have a linear fracture in my jaw."
Sliwa and Sabet were rushed to the hospital...
"Forty-eight stitches, injuries to the eyebrow, left sinus is shattered, nose broken, I got a chipped tooth," Sabet said.
He also lost sight in his left eye, and he and Sliwa say this all could've been prevented.
"Hopefully the NYPD gets more aggressive," Sliwa said. "But that's only if (Mayor Bill) de Blasio lets them."
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