Police investigate television attack on Times Square by Guardian Angels

New York police and the Manhattan district attorney said Thursday they were investigating a scuffle in Times Square that broke out after members of an anti-crime group confronted a man wrongly identified as a migrant by their leader.

Curtis Sliwa, the founder of the Guardian Angels, was being interviewed live on Fox News when members of his group standing behind him disappeared from view.

“Our men just took down one of the migrant men,” Mr. Sliwa told the host, Sean Hannity. The camera panned to show several guardian angels surrounding a man and then pulling him to the ground. Mr Sliwa then accused the man of shoplifting – wrongly, according to the police.

“We gave him a little pain relief,” Mr Sliwa said. “His mother in Venezuela felt the tremors.”

The man, whose name has not been given, appeared to be a resident of the Bronx. The incident has sparked fears of anti-immigrant vigilantism — or anyone who can be identified as such — in New York.

Officials, including District Attorney Alvin L. Bragg, Mayor Eric Adams and Governor Kathy Hochul, are under intense pressure from all sides of the immigration debate. The violence was broadcast on Fox came after video surfaced of a Jan. 27 attack in which several men, later identified by a law enforcement official as migrants, kicked and punched a police officer and lieutenant in Times Square.

Republican politicians and their allies have said the attack on the officers shows New York is under siege by immigrant criminals, but immigrant support groups have said Republicans are using an isolated incident to demonize people seeking a better life.

Ms Hochul had criticized prosecutors for not responding more forcefully to the attack on the officers. After the actions of the Guardian Angels, she said that justice was not a job for civilians.

“I reject the premise that anyone can take the law into their own hands,” Ms. Hochul said on CNN on Thursday. “Then we have chaos. This isn't the Wild West. This is New York State.”

While migration has surged in the past two years, Mr Adams has said the steady stream of arrivals in New York would “destroy” the city. On Monday, he donned a bulletproof vest with a Fendi scarf to take part in a police raid on a robbery gang where many participants were believed to be recent migrants.

On Thursday, however, Mr. Adams took a more measured tone at a press conference where he and Mr. Bragg announced charges against seven men arrested after the January 27 attack on police officers.

Mr Adams said police “don't have the luxury of doing what we saw Curtis Sliwa do.”

“To see someone on the corner and automatically identify them, based on their ethnicity, as a migrant, an asylum seeker and not a former resident of the Bronx: that is not what we can do,” the mayor said. “We have to do it right.”

The man the Guardian Angels confronted and pinned down has not been identified. Police said officers responding to a 911 call issued him a summons for disorderly conduct after he tried to disrupt the Fox News interview and for being “loud, disorderly and threatening on a busy sidewalk.”

Investigators have been examining videos of the incident to build a timeline of what happened, including the decision to issue the man a summons, a law enforcement official said Thursday, who asked not to be named to discuss details of to discuss an ongoing investigation.

Mr. Sliwa, a former mayoral candidate whose followers in red berets have marched through the city for decades, did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment.

Mr Sliwa and Mr Hannity had been discussing the alleged migrant-fuelled crime wave when the violence broke out. When the camera turned around, it captured the angels confront a lightly built man in a hooded sweatshirtthrowing him to the ground and putting him in a headlock.

Mr Bragg said he had viewed footage of the incident and what he saw was 'disturbing'. He said his office would follow the facts.

“We're not making any assumptions,” Mr. Bragg said.

On Thursday, a coalition of left-wing organizations laid some of the blame for what they said was a rise in anti-immigrant sentiment on Mr. Adams, a Democrat who has vacillated between highlighting New York's history as a beacon for immigrants and claiming that the crisis threatens the city.

On Monday, the same day, the mayor accompanied the police raid, his police commissioner, Edward A. Caban said that “a wave of immigrant crime has swept our city.”

Both men emphasized that most immigrants come for a better life and not to break laws. On Thursday afternoon, Mr. Adams sounded a similar note.

“The overwhelming number of migrants and asylum seekers are abiding by the law and pursuing the American dream,” he said.

But critics said some of Mr. Adams' language has strengthened Republican arguments.

“Mayor Adams' amplification of the anti-immigrant rhetoric and reckless fear-mongering of the far right is fueling violence against our neighbors,” said the coalition, which also included New York Communities for Change, Make the Road New York and the Working Families Party.

Mr. Bragg, who is also a Democrat, faced a different kind of pressure from conservatives and from members of his own party. including Ms Hochul and Attorney General Letitia Jamesafter Manhattan prosecutors opted not to seek bail for many of the men arrested in the Jan. 27 attack on police.

Responding to the criticism, Mr Bragg suggested he was concerned the wrong men were involved in the attack.

However, on Thursday he said he had more confidence in the identifications and spoke strongly about the attack, saying it had “made me sick and enraged me.”

“As a lifelong New Yorker, I will not tolerate attacks on our police officers and especially not as a Manhattan district attorney,” Mr. Bragg said as he stood next to the mayor.

Mr Adams praised Mr Bragg for pursuing the charges and reiterated his statements that only “a small minority” of migrants broke the laws.

“We're going to prosecute anyone who commits a crime, whether they're New Yorkers or newcomers,” he said. “And that's what we do.”

Jonah E. Bromwich And Dana Rubinstein reporting contributed.