The ‘Venezuelan migrant shoplifter’ a vigilante group tackled in Times Square during a live TV interview was actually an American from the Bronx.
On Tuesday, failed New York City mayoral candidate Curtis Sliwa was speaking to Sean Hannity on Fox News with his ‘Guardian Angels’ when his men suddenly rushed off.
‘Our guys have just taken down one of the migrant guys right here on the corner of 42nd and 7th while all this is taking place,’ Sliwa said, alone on the screen at 9.30pm.
Hannity asked for the camera to be aimed at the action, and it panned to see the Guardian Angels shoving and then tackling a man to the ground.
However, the NYPD said the man was neither a migrant nor a shoplifter, and was charged with disorderly conduct for trying to disrupt the interview.
Failed New York City mayoral candidate Curtis Sliwa was speaking to Sean Hannity on Fox News with his ‘Guardian Angels’ when his men suddenly rushed off
Instead, he was a 23-year-old American citizen who moved to the US when he was 10, and lives in the Bronx.
‘Police responded to a 911 call of a disorderly male… upon arrival officers observed a male being detained by bystanders,’ the NYPD told DailyMail.com.
‘Officers were informed that the male had repeatedly attempted to interfere with and disrupt a live television interview. The male was issued a summons for disorderly conduct.’
Police did not say whether any of the Guardian Angels were arrested for roughing up the man, among the three-dozen arrests around Times Square that night.
Silwa later claimed the man was tackled because he hit a female member of his group in the face, but provided no evidence.
‘There’s like three guys rumbling with people in the crowd. But then they come up to the location of the broadcast as the broadcast is going on,’ he told NBC.
‘Then the one guy socks a female Guardian Angel. Everyone who is behind me now goes rushing toward the location and they take down the person who hit the Guardian Angel.’
He said he claimed on camera the man was a shoplifter based solely on other people in the crowd said, and because he supposedly had a backpack with ‘baby clothes with tags on them’ inside.
Hannity asked for the camera to be aimed at the action, and it panned to see the Guardian Angels shoving then tackling a man to the ground
Sliwa later in the Fox News broadcast claimed the man was seen shoplifting, and they roughly threw him to the ground when he ‘resisted’.
‘The Guardian Angels spotted him, stopped him, he resisted, and let’s just say we gave him a little pain compliance,’ he said.
‘His mother back in Venezuela felt the vibrations. He’s sucking concrete, the cops scraped him off the asphalt, he’s on his way to jail, but they’ll cut him loose.’
‘We gotta take 42nd Street back. These illegals think they own this street, they think they rule the night. This is our country, if they can’t abide by the rules, then we’re gonna kick ’em back from where they came.’
Sliwa complained the NYPD were taking a ‘hands off’ approach to crime, and, despite not being law enforcement officers, they would make migrants ‘pay’.
‘You shoplift, you commit crime, you assault people, you don’t belong in our country and we’re gonna make sure you pay a price for that,’ he said.
‘We gotta fight for what we know is right and you saw a little bit of this. They got a little bit of taste of what the Guardian Angels are gonna do to liberate Times Square from them.’
Sliwa was recently on the wrong side of the law himself, arrested at an anti-immigration rally outside Mayor Eric Adams’ office last August.
His group was involved in a brawl between protesters and counter-protesters, and crossed police barriers after being warned not to do so.
Police officers were attacked when they tried to disperse a disorderly group in front of 220 West 42 Street about 8.30pm on January 27
JHoan Boada is released from Manhattan Criminal Court after he was arraigned for allegedly beating up two cops in Times Square with a group of others
A week earlier, he was arrested during another anti-immigration protest outside a new asylum-seeker shelter.
Sliwa, in 1992, admitted he faked at least six crimes that his group supposedly foiled, including a mugging, to gain publicity.
The NYC landmark was the site of other ugly scenes in recent months, sometimes involving confirmed migrants.
Police officers were attacked when they tried to disperse a disorderly group in front of 220 West 42 Street around 8.30pm on January 27.
According to the NYPD, the migrants then started to attack them, kicking them in the head and body while the two officers tried to pin down one of the men, tearing off his sweatshirt.
The migrants then ran away, leaving the police officers on the ground while they made their getaway east on 42nd Street toward Seventh Avenue.
Darwin Andres Gomez Izquiel, 19, Kelvin Servita Arocha, 19, Wilson Juarez, 21, Yorman Reveron, 24, Jhoan Boada, 22, and Yohenry Brito, 24, were all later arrested.
They were charged with assault on a police officer, gang assault, obstructing governmental administration and disorderly conduct but were released without bail.
The moment a migrant on a moped dragged a woman along a New York City street to steal her phone was caught in horrifying footage shared by police
The same group has also been connected to a migrant crime spree that targeted more than 60 women and stealing their phones. One of the thefts involved a woman being dragged by a moped as suspects grabbed her phone.
Seven migrants were arrested by the NYPD after they allegedly went on a crime spree that saw them stealing wallets and phones from at least 62 women across the city’s five boroughs.
Police arrested at least seven migrants, all believed to be from Venezuela, in a safe house in the Bronx after executing a search warrant.
Police believe the gang is led by Venezuelan ringleader Victor Parra, 30, who had a tech guy hack the phones, use the devices to make fraudulent purchases and clear out victim’s bank accounts before sending them to Colombia.
‘Like you saw with yesterday’s [robbery ring bust] — where the proceeds are being shipped to Miami, Houston and eventually Colombia — they’re a little more sophisticated in that they’re hacking into the phones, stealing people’s banking records,’ NYPD Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny said.
Kenny added the gangs were able to gain access to people’s Venmo, Zelle and other money transfer accounts before making purchases, transfer money to other accounts or withdraw cash.
Once the accounts are wiped clean, they then ship the phones overseas and sell them, Kenny said.
