Video has emerged of the moment former New York Governor David Paterson and his Guardian Angel stepson were punched and kicked during a fight with a gang on the city’s Upper East Side.
Three children and two adults have been charged with assault after the pair were left bloodied and bruised by youths they had previously seen trying to climb a fire escape.
The footage shows 20-year-old Anthony Sliwa being repeatedly kicked in the back as he lies helpless on the ground, while his 70-year-old nearly blind stepfather tries to drag the attackers away, eventually knocking one to the ground throws.
Sliwa, the natural son of Guardian Angles founder Curtis Sliwa, required five stitches in hospital for a split lip while Paterson was checked after being hit in the back of the head.
“When they insulted him and then started fighting 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 stepson Anthony Sliwa when the pair were punched and kicked in what police said was a “gang attack.”
A restaurant filmed the kicks flying in as the 20-year-old lay helpless on the ground
The state’s first black governor said the pair were walking a dog outside Sliwa’s apartment building early Friday evening when they saw a group of youths trying to climb a fire escape in the building next to a mosque.
Sliwa warned them they could hurt themselves and said he would call the police if they did not stop.
At 8:30 p.m., they encountered the group again at a McDonald’s restaurant just off nearby East 97th Street.
Paterson said they got into an argument with the gang before two of them attacked the couple.
“He stopped as many other people as he could, but then it became four against one, five against one, six against one, and he was knocked to the ground and numbed by the experience,” he said. explained.
‘I got hit in the face a few times. I got a slap on the shoulder.
“But the person who hit me on the shoulder, I threw myself against the window of the McDonalds.”
When the fight broke out, two adults, who prosecutors say had no connection to the youths, “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, apparently filmed by a restaurant from inside the restaurant, shows Sliwa already on the ground, locked in a wrestling hold with one of the youths.
A $50,000 bond was set when Travor Nurse was arraigned on assault charges Tuesday
Co-defendant Diamond Minter, 34, was released under supervised release at the same hearing
The three teenagers are believed to have been involved in the attack
A woman, presumably Minter, leans over the pair and appears to grab Sliwa’s arms while two other boys stomp on Sliwa’s back and deliver a series of running kicks.
It looks like someone accidentally kicks his friend to the ground before turning around and kicking Sliwa’s legs.
Paterson can be seen pushing an attacker away as more youths move in, throwing one to the ground before the attackers step back, showing Sliwa turning around with blood pouring from his mouth.
Assistant District Attorney Zachary Campbell told the court that Sliwa pushed Nurse into a doorway before exchanging punches with both Nurse and Minter.
The nurse then allegedly threw Sliwa to the ground, and two of the three boys, aged 12 and 13 – who have since been charged in the Family Court – began kicking and stamping on him while Minter allegedly held Sliwa’s arms down as he struggled to to defend themselves.
The 20-second video ends before the point at which, prosecutors allege, the nurse began walking away, only to turn around and slam Paterson to the ground with a blow to the back of his head.
He then threw another punch at Sliwa, as the 20-year-old staggered to his feet.
Curtis Silwa, leader of vigilante group Guardian Angels and Anthony’s biological father, said Paterson and his son had “stuck to their guns.”
“David is blind so he couldn’t see what was going on at first so Anthony had to guide him and then stand in front of him and take a lot of blows,” he told Dailymail.com
“He said the adults were the ones hitting the hardest.”
The nurse’s attorney, Jeff Chabrowe, told the Daily News that Sliwa was the primary attacker and that his client tried to come to the children’s aid.
“My client arrived afterwards, when former Governor Paterson and Mr Sliwa were already in confrontation with some youths, and tried to act as a peacemaker when Mr Sliwa attacked him,” he explained.
He said Paterson had bragged in a radio interview about Sliwa’s black belt in jiu-jitsu and admitted that Sliwa had hit one of the youths with his head against a window.
Police have 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 Saturday morning.
Two of the youths – aged 12 and 13 – appeared in court on Sunday on charges of gang assault after being handed over to police by their parents on Saturday evening.
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 during their hearing Tuesday.
“They jumped in,” NYPD Chief Detective Joseph Kenny said Tuesday.
‘They seemed to want to involve themselves in the attack.
‘It was like a fight. They continued to circle each other. Getting knocked down. Get up again.’
The nurse and the munter have both denied the allegations, and Chabrowe said his client would prove his innocence.
‘I am confident that the Public Prosecution Service will see this through further investigation and we look forward to clearing his name.’