By Rachel Dares
The Guardian Angels, a controversial anti-crime patrol group, will be coming to Centretown this February following complaints of vandalism, drug abuse and public drunkenness.
Apart from street patrols, the group plans to help out by assisting the elderly, handing out blankets to the homeless and cleaning up parks, says Kelly Duval, the director of the new Guardian Angels Ottawa chapter.
“We’re going to be there to help people out in whatever way we can,” he says. “The last thing you want to be doing is taking your kids to any of the parks in the area and having to trudge through condoms and needles.”
The group has already received some positive feedback from mayor-elect Larry O’Brien, when he attended the chapter’s introductory meeting last month.
“He was very impressed and very pleased with what he heard,” says Mike Patton, a spokesperson for O’Brien.
“He’s a big believer in community agencies assisting the police so long as they understand that they are not the police.”
Sporting the easily identifiable uniform of bright red berets and jackets, the Guardian Angels’ two-dozen volunteers will start patrolling the streets after three months of training starting in early December.
The chapter received a number of calls from Centretown, and in response residents can expect to see patrols in the area. According to Duval, the group will also take into consideration the recent report that Somerset Ward’s crime rate is double that of the city of Ottawa as a whole.
But the patrols will be most heavily focused on areas with the largest number of crime complaints such as Vanier and Bayshore, says Duval. As more volunteers are trained, the group hopes to patrol all of Ottawa.
Curtis Sliwa, a former McDonald’s manager in New York, founded the volunteer group in 1979 as a no-weapons approach to curb the growing crime rate in his neighbourhood.
The group has since become the world’s largest non-profit safety patrol organization, says Lou Hoffer, Canada’s national director.
The Guardian Angels have decided to set up a chapter here despite a lack of support from Ottawa police, who will not endorse the group’s activities or establish any official relationship, says Const. Steven Desjourdy.
“We need every help we can get from the citizens to fight off crime. But we don’t specifically need the Guardian Angels.”
According to Desjourdy, Ottawa already has a low crime rate. With over 1,200 police officers, the Ottawa police force is “fully equipped” to handle the crime in Ottawa, without the help of the Guardian Angels, he says.
But Statistics Canada reports that Ottawa has one of the lowest rates of police officers among metropolitan areas in the country, with only 138 officers per 100,000 population, compared with the national rate of 192 officers.
Concerns raised by the police about the new chapter were insufficient training and legal issues in case a Guardian Angel injures or kills a person.
Nothing compares to the years of rigorous training a police officer goes through, to learn how to properly patrol and conduct arrests, says Desjourdy.
The Ottawa Guardian Angels training program will include self defence, CPR, first aid and conflict resolution, says Duval. In February, groups of six volunteers will start patrolling the streets and buses from early evening to 4 a.m.
A small number of Guardian Angels from other chapters have been killed in confrontations while on patrol, says Duval. Detaining criminals through citizen’s arrests is not uncommon, says Hoffer, who explains this is a legal right in the criminal code for anyone witnessing a serious offence.
According to Matthew Yeager, a Carleton University criminologist, the common association of the Angels with vigilantism is a misconception. The group’s approach to crime prevention is more often to report criminal activity to the police rather than get physically involved.
He adds that not much research has been done on their effectiveness in crime prevention, so it’s possible they are merely displacing crime to other areas of the city.
Duval says he just wants to provide extra eyes and ears on the streets to help out the police.