Man Attacked By Guardian Angels Live On Fox News Wasn't A 'Migrant' After All: Police

Ben Blanchet
Updated ·2 min read
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The man seen tackled by members of the vigilante group Guardian Angels in a viral Fox News clip is not a “migrant” and is from New York City, a New York Police Department spokesperson told the Associated Press.

The information arrives after former GOP New York City mayoral candidate Curtis Sliwa, the group’s founder, pointed out the man as “one of the migrant guys” before members brought him to the ground during a live TV interview in Times Square with Fox News’ Sean Hannity on Tuesday.

Sliwa claimed that the man had been shoplifting before the Guardian Angels gave him “a little pain compliance,” adding that the man’s mother “back in Venezuela felt the vibrations.”

But the man, according to an NYPD spokesperson, is from the Bronx and police didn’t have evidence to support the claim that he had been shoplifting.

“Officers were informed that the male had repeatedly attempted to interfere with and disrupt a live television interview,” the spokesperson told NBC News, noting that the man was detained by bystanders and issued a summons as officers saw him “acting in a loud, disorderly threatening manner” on the sidewalk.

Sliwa, who founded the group in the ’70s and lost to New York Mayor Eric Adams (D) in the city’s 2021 mayoral election, criticized Adams in the interview for the city’s prepaid card program for migrants.

He has previously admitted that several of the group’s “early crime-fighting exploits were actually faked” and once staged his own kidnapping, The New York Times reportedin the early ’90s.

Sliwa was arrested in August during a protest over migrant housing in the city.

He told NBC News that the man hit a “female Guardian Angel” before other members went and took the person down, adding that the shoplifting allegation stemmed from what those in the crowd told him.

Sliwa said he believed the man was a migrant because he had been “speaking Spanish” and members had previously come across him with other Spanish speakers, according to The Associated Press.

Police did not respond to AP’s questions on whether members of the group were under investigation following the altercation.

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