A video emerged yesterday of former Governor David Paterson and his stepson being beaten by thugs on the Upper East Side. Paterson, 70, and Anthony Sliwa, 20, were set upon after urging five gang members to stop attempting to climb up a fire escape near East 96th St. and 2nd Ave.
Two older members of the crew instructed the younger ones to attack Paterson, who is legally blind, and Sliwa. Once the victims were on the ground, the older thugs joined in the kicking and beating.
Passersby eventually intervened. Paterson and Sliwa are recovering, and thankfully neither has any serious physical injuries. Four arrests have been made.
A degree of irony pervades the incident, as Sliwa is the biological son of Curtis Sliwa, perennial conservative contender for mayor of New York City and founder of the Guardian Angels. Paterson married Sliwa's ex-wife in 2019.
The Guardian Angels is a non-profit international volunteer organization founded in 1979. Since then, it has expanded to over 130 cities in 13 countries. The red beret-toting crime-stoppers have long been a welcome sight around the city. The kind of senseless violence that happened to Anthony Sliwa is precisely what his father has fought against for 45 years.
For many Gothamites, 96th St. is the unofficial border between Manhattan and Harlem (the actual border being 125th St. on the East Side), so it isn't the safest location, but it's far from what one would consider a gang neighborhood. It was nighttime, but only 8:30pm.
New York needs groups like the Guardian Angels now more than it has in decades.
To the long list of charges levied at the Mayor Adams administration, we can now add assault. Department of Corrections (DoC) press secretary Annais Morales got into an interoffice squabble with her colleague Mariam Singh, a DoC compliance officer. The pair were attending a Hispanic Heritage event at Gracie Mansion on Tuesday.
The 34-second clip begins in the heat of an argument, so there's no saying what went on beforehand, but Morales can be heard to say, "Don't ever touch me, ever," as Singh takes out her smartphone and proceeds to record the incident.
As Morales grabs at Singh's phone, one of New York's Boldest--a uniformed corrections officer--tries to break up the fight. Morales succeeds in wresting away the phone, and throws it across the room.
The incident comes at the lowest time in Adams' mayoralty as federal investigations into his dealings with the government of Turkey proceed. Six top advisers have resigned in the past month alone.