Video has emerged of the moment former New York Governor David Paterson and his stepson Guardian Angel were punched and kicked in a fight with a gang on the city’s Upper East Side.
Three children and two adults have been charged with assault after youths they had earlier seen trying to climb a fire escape left them bloody and bruised.
Footage shows 20-year-old Anthony Sliwa being repeatedly kicked in the back as he lies helplessly on the ground as his nearly blind 70-year-old stepfather tries to fend off the attackers, eventually throwing one to the ground.
Sliwa, the natural son of Guardian Angles founder Curtis Sliwa, needed five stitches in hospital for a split lip, while Paterson was examined after being punched in the back of the head.
“When they called him names and then started fighting with him, he didn’t back down,” Paterson said of his stepson. “And I think that took a lot of courage.”
David Paterson, New York state’s first black governor, was with his stepson Anthony Sliwa when they were both punched and kicked in what police called a “gang attack.”
A restaurant filmed the kicks as the 20-year-old lay helpless on the ground.
The state’s first black governor said the couple was walking a dog outside the Sliwa apartment block early Friday afternoon when they saw a group of young men trying to climb a fire escape in the building next to a mosque.
Sliwa warned them that they could hurt themselves and said he would call the police if they did not stop.
At 8:30 p.m. they ran into the group again outside a McDonald’s restaurant on nearby East 97th Street.
Paterson said they argued with the gang before two of them attacked the couple.
“He was holding off as many other people as he could, but then it became four-on-one, five-on-one, six-on-one, and the experience knocked him to the ground and stunned him,” he said. explained.
“They punched me a couple of times in the face. They punched me in the shoulder.
“But I threw the person who hit me on the shoulder against the McDonald’s window myself.”
When the fight broke out, two adults who, according to prosecutors, have no connection to the young men, “took it upon themselves to intervene.”
New York City Housing Authority employees Travor Nurse, 40, and Diamond Minter, 34, were arraigned Tuesday in Manhattan Criminal Court.
The video, which was apparently filmed from inside the restaurant by a diner, shows Sliwa already on the ground locked in a fight with one of the young men.
Bail was set at $50,000 when Travor Nurse was arraigned on assault charges Tuesday.
Co-defendant Diamond Minter, 34, was released on supervised release at the same hearing.
The three teenagers allegedly involved in the attack
A woman, believed to be Minter, leans over the couples and appears to grab and hold Sliwa’s arms while two other children stomp on Sliwa’s back and give him a series of kicks.
One appears to accidentally kick his friend to the ground before turning and kicking Sliwa’s legs.
Paterson can be seen pushing away one attacker as more youths approach, throwing one to the ground before the attackers step back to reveal Sliwa turning around with blood coming out of his mouth.
Assistant District Attorney Zachary Campbell told the court that Sliwa pushed Nurse toward a door before exchanging blows with Nurse and Minter.
The nurse then allegedly threw Sliwa to the floor, and two of the three boys, aged 12 and 13, who have since been charged in Family Court, began kicking and stomping on him while Minter allegedly held him down. Sliwa’s arms as he struggled to defend himself.
The 20-second video ends before the point at which, the district attorney claims, Nurse began to walk away, only to turn around and send Paterson to the ground with a punch to the back of the head.
He then threw another punch at Sliwa as the 20-year-old staggered to his feet.
Curtis Silwa, leader of the Guardian Angels watchdog group and Anthony’s biological father, said Paterson and his son had “held their ground.”
“David is blind so at first he couldn’t see what was happening, so Anthony had to guide him and then get in front of him and take a lot of hits,” he told Dailymail.com.
“He said adults were the most affected.”
Nurse’s attorney, Jeff Chabrowe, told the Daily News that Sliwa was the primary aggressor and that his client was trying to help the children.
“My client arrived after the fact, when former Governor Paterson and Mr. Sliwa were already in a confrontation with some youths, and he was trying to act as a peacemaker when Mr. Sliwa attacked him,” he explained.
He said Paterson had boasted in a radio interview about Sliwa’s black belt in ju-jitsu and admitted that Sliwa had slammed one of the young men head-first into a window.
Police released CCTV images of the attackers – three teenagers and an adult man and woman – to help track them down.
Silwa said his son, who was trained in martial arts by the guardian angels, told him: ‘I did what I had to do, dad’ when they spoke on Saturday morning.
Two of the boys, aged 12 and 13, appeared in court on Sunday charged with gang assault after being handed over to police by their parents on Saturday night.
Another teen turned himself in but has not been charged.
Judge Pamela Goldsmith set Nurse’s bail at $50,000 and released Minter on supervised release at her hearing Tuesday.
“They went on the attack,” NYPD Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny said Tuesday.
‘They seemed to want to join the assault.
“It was like a riot. They continued to circle around each other. Being knocked down. Getting back up.
Both Nurse and Minter denied the charges and Chabrowe said his client would prove his innocence.
“I’m sure that after further investigation, the district attorney’s office will become aware of this and we look forward to clearing his name.”
