GUARDIAN ANGELS' SCOUTS LAND IN OTTAWA

Safety Patrol Group To Meet With Police, Tour Vanier On 'Exploratory'
Visit

Spurred by e-mails from Ottawa residents who fear the city is being
overtaken by crime, members of a U.S.-based volunteer patrol
organization arrived in town last night to begin gauging whether
there's enough interest to start a chapter here.

Three members of the Canadian wing of the Guardian Angels, a
27-year-old group that's made its name in the U.S. for organizing its
own street patrols, are in Ottawa today to meet with the Ottawa police
and do a tour of Vanier.

It's the beginning of the Canadian branch's look into whether Ottawa
can sustain a chapter of Angels. The first steps were taken last night
when the three men met with potential leaders of an area chapter.

The Angels' Canadian expansion began in January with the formal
establishment of the Canadian wing and a Toronto chapter, while
chapters in Vancouver and Calgary are due to follow soon.

Lou Hoffer, the 40-year-old Angels' national director in Canada and
one of the three men in Ottawa today, said their interest in the city
was piqued by dozens of e-mails from residents who said crime was
getting out of control in the city.

"They don't want Ottawa to go the way of New York circa the 1980s,"
said Mr. Hoffer, referring to the approximately 60 e-mails he said
he's received. "I'm reading it in the e-mails all the time. That's why
we're coming to Ottawa. We come by invitation only."

One of the e-mails was written by a parent whose son was swarmed for a
baseball cap, said Mr. Hoffer, while others mentioned the high-profile
incidents of people urinating on the war memorial. People are worried
by increasing crime, said Mr. Hoffer, though he acknowledged his views
on Ottawa were influenced by the e-mails he was getting.

According to a 2005 Statistics Canada report, Ottawa and London, Ont.,
were the only major Canadian cities to see an increase in the overall
number of crimes last year. The number of crimes in the Ottawa area
increased 1.1 per cent from 2004, while crime rates nationally dropped
an average of five per cent.

Despite mentioning crime as the reason for coming to Ottawa, Mr.
Hoffer stressed that most of the Guardian Angels' work doesn't involve
fighting crime at all. The Angels, known for their trademark red
berets, often help seniors, deal with drunken individuals or help in
medical emergencies, he said.

"The Guardian Angels gives citizens a tangible opportunity to get out
on the streets and have a proactive presence," he said. "We leave
policing to the police."

Mr. Hoffer, who worked as a Toronto police officer for five years and
then did private contracting before assuming his current role in
January, said crime concerns do offer an opening for the Angels to
establish a chapter. Once that's done, he said, they can focus more on
their main work of patrolling the community and visiting schools to
campaign against bullying.

"If that's how we get through the front door, great," he
said.

A Guardian Angels patrol typically involves a four-hour tour of a
neighbourhood by a minimum of six people, all of whom are volunteers.

The volunteers don't carry weapons, but do carry a first-aid kit and,
in some cases, a flashlight.

The group -- funded entirely by private donations -- was created in
1979 by Curtis Sliwa, a night manager at a McDonald's in the Bronx who
was fed up with rampant crime. Since then, the group has expanded into
more than 80 cities and twice tried unsuccessfully -- once in the
mid-1980s and again in the early 1990s -- to establish itself in Toronto.

Mr. Hoffer said those who criticize the Guardian Angels as vigilantes
have no idea of what the group actually does. That they often enter a
city with a message of fighting crime does little to dispel that idea,
he acknowledged, but anyone who follows them around would see they're
really similar to the kind of presence offered by a Block Parent program.

He pointed to a visit scheduled for 3 p.m. today to the William E. Hay
Centre, a facility for young offenders, as evidence of what the group
is really about.

Mr. Hoffer said Ottawa is in the "super-early" stages of having a
chapter. He would need to have anywhere between 30 and 50 people
signed up before establishing a chapter, something that would take at
least six months.

Asked what the Angels' motivation is for setting up in Ottawa, Mr.
Hoffer said it would be Ottawa residents who would benefit from having
the group lend a hand.

No one in the Guardian Angels would benefit directly since it's a
not-for-profit group, he said.

The Angels were the ones who offered to meet with Ottawa police to let
them know what they were planning, Mr. Hoffer said, similar to
meetings they've had in other Canadian cities, although Toronto police
have refused to meet with them.

The meeting at police headquarters on Elgin Street will involve Martin
Champoux, strategic support co-ordinator for Chief Vince Bevan, and
Staff-Sgt. Paul Johnston of the police service's central division.

Staff-Sgt. Johnson said the meeting will be a chance for both sides to
feel each other out.

"They come with a past," he said, referring to some of the vigilante
criticism. "We want to hear what they have to say, what their plans
are."

Staff-Sgt. Johnson said Ottawa police wouldn't follow the actions of
their Vancouver counterparts at today's meeting. On Friday, Vancouver
police offered to train that city's Guardian Angels chapter in
everything from CPR to use of force.

"We won't be exploring that," Staff-Sgt. Johnston said.

Mr. Hoffer said he wants police to hear about the group
firsthand.

"We're not expecting anything," said Mr. Hoffer, noting later that the
meeting alone will elicit media coverage that will raise the group's
profile. "We just appreciate the opportunity to have an open dialogue."