Larry Fauntleroy of the Poughkeepsie Guardian Angels said that he's not giving up efforts to build a chapter in Newburgh.
By Nancy Peckenham
The crime-fighting Guardian Angels appeared at a citizens advisory forum in Newburgh Thursday to tell its members they are not giving up on efforts to form a chapter to patrol the city.
“We’ve been struggling with this chapter for three years,” Larry Fauntleroy, a leader of the Poughkeepsie chapter of the Angels said, “We’re going to keep doing it until we get it right.”
Last November, Fauntleroy joined Guardian Angels founder Curtis Silwa in a graduation ceremony that included eight members of a fledgling Newburgh chapter. Today, that group is down to five and Fauntleroy says he stopped the patrols temporarily. He told the citizens forum that they will be back on the street as part of a major recruitment effort planned in the near future.
Jeff Jendrejeski, who was assaulted last October, talked about how good parenting can help reduce crime.
Fauntleroy blamed a lack of commitment from recruits who lose interest once they see the demands of patrolling regularly. One of the Newburgh leaders, Miguel Rivera, went back to doing drugs shortly after the graduation, Fauntleroy said, and he was suspended from the chapter just before police arrested him in December on a larceny charge.
The citizens advisory committee had called the evening meeting to discuss fighting crime in the city just two weeks after federal authorities charged 31 people with murder and gang-related activities in a major sweep. A business owner attacked on South Lander Street in October and two police officers also spoke at the forum, which attracted about ten residents and a half-dozen reporters.
Newburgh chapter members Daisy Gamel (l) and Maybelle Gay say they are not giving up.
During a break in the forum, two of the three members of the Newburgh chapter who came to the forum said they are committed to the Guardian Angels. Daisy Gamel, 50, and Maybelle Gaye, 68, are grandmothers from the town of Newburgh and they know what it takes to help keep young people out of trouble. They both also volunteer with the Northeast Gateway to Freedom to Life Center, whose stated mission is to “rescue Newburgh’s next generation.”
“I ain’t going nowhere,” Gamel said. “I’m here.”
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