Metro
exclusive
Guardian Angels founder Curtis Sliwa vows to run for mayor
He’s throwing his red beret in the ring.
Guardian Angels founder and WABC talk-radio shock jock Curtis Sliwa plans to run for mayor in 2021, he told The Post.
“I am the only candidate with the onions to take back the city,” Sliwa, 65, told The Post. “I have the street cred. I have bled in the streets. I’ve given seven lives. I have two left. I’ll use them for the City of New York.”
Sliwa re-registered from a Reform Party member to Republican last month and would run on the GOP line, though he is yet to officially file paperwork to run.
A lifelong city resident who fires quips and zingers in his Brooklynese accent, Sliwa launched the crime-fighting Guardian Angels’ group 40 years ago to patrol the subways and the streets in the days when Gotham was overrun by crime.
He says he now worries the dark days are coming back because of soft-on crime Democratic policies, citing in particular the state’s new bail-reform law, which the NYPD claims is responsible for this year’s spike in crimes.
“It took us a long time to crawl out of the belly of the beast of the 1970s through 1990s. Bill de Blasio and the Democrats are bringing us back in,” said Sliwa.
Sliwa’s platform includes ditching the mayor’s security detail and put more cops in uniform to fight crime. He’d also restore “pro-active” foot patrols and encourage more voluntary patrols like the Guardian Angels to work with the NYPD.
He also wants to keep open and refurbish Rikers Island and thwart plans to open jails in the boroughs, as well as opening more psychiatric facilities to aid mentally ill homeless people — calling it an “absolute sin” to leave them in the streets.
To restore discipline and order in the public schools, Sliwa said he’d toss out bullies. And he’d open more charter, vocational and trade schools to meet parental demand.
Sliwa admits he carries baggage that would come up in a political campaign, but says it’s all out in the open.
During the Guardian Angels’ early days, he fessed up to filing false police reports of being attacked to generate publicity.
He is on his fourth marriage, and his spats with his ex-wives and girlfriends — notably Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz — have landed him in the headlines.
“The only skeleton I have left is the one under my skin,” he said.
The plucky pugilist has also had his fair share of scrapes and bruises — but said he’s in fighting shape to take on City Hall.
In 1992, Sliwa was shot and seriously wounded on the Lower East Side. He blamed Gambino crime family honcho John Gotti Jr. for ordering the shooting as revenge for criticism of his father on his radio show.
He’s also survived prostate cancer, painful colitis and Crohn’s disease, which he blamed on the gunshot wounds to the stomach. He underwent stomach surgery after his weight plummeted from 220 to 140 pounds. He said he is now a healthy 200 pounds.
“I feel great. I’m ready to go,” Sliwa said. “I took a licking but keep on ticking.”