The Guardian Angels violently tackled a man they claimed to be a migrant shoplifter during a live TV interview from Times Square about the crisis — but who cops say was just a pest trying to disrupt filming.
Group founder Curtis Sliwa was talking to Fox News late Tuesday about migrant crime in the city when members of his red-clad cohort suddenly dashed off.
“Our guys have just taken down one of the migrant guys right here on the corner of 42nd and 7th while all this is taking place,” Sliwa told amazed host Sean Hannity.
The camera then panned over to show the Guardian Angels surrounding and shoving a bespectacled man in a dark jacket with the hood up.
During a scuffle, Sliwa’s volunteers tackled him to the ground, with one seemingly putting him in a chokehold.
“He had been shoplifting,” Sliwa later told Hannity about the fracas, without explaining how he or his group members knew.
“The Guardian Angels spotted him, stopped him, he resisted, and let’s just say we gave him a little pain compliance.
“His mother back in Venezuela felt the vibrations,” the former mayoral candidate quipped, again without explaining why he had drawn such a conclusion.
“He’s sucking concrete, the cops scraped him off the asphalt, he’s on his way to jail, but they’ll cut him loose,” he said, referring to the scandal over migrants freed after attacking an NYPD cop.
The NYPD, however, had a very different take on the drama.
Officers responded to a 911 call about “a disorderly male,” a police spokesperson told The Post, with no mention of it being either a migrant or a shoplifter.
“Upon arrival officers observed a male being detained by bystanders,” the spokesperson said.
“Officers were informed that the male had repeatedly attempted to interfere with and disrupt a live television interview. The male was issued a summons for disorderly conduct.”
During his interview, Sliwa decried Times Square being overwhelmed by criminal migrants.
“We gotta take 42nd Street back, Sean,” Sliwa said. “These illegals think they own this street, they think they rule the night. This is our country, if they can’t abide by the rules, then we’re gonna kick ’em back from where they came.”
Hannity said that he had accompanied the Guardian Angels on patrol in Times Square and suggested that police officers were “very appreciative” of their efforts.
“Unfortunately, they’ve been told, ‘hands off,’ but guess what? We don’t keep our hands off,” Sliwa said.
“You shoplift, you commit crime, you assault people, you don’t belong in our country and we’re gonna make sure you pay a price for that.
“We gotta fight for what we know is right and you saw a little bit of this,” he added. “They got a little bit of taste of what the Guardian Angels are gonna do to liberate Times Square from them.”
Earlier in the interview on Fox News, Sliwa, who lost the mayoral election to Eric Adams in 2021, identified himself as Adams’ “number one hater” — and attacked his political opponent for “single-handedly destroying this city” by offering migrants prepaid debit cards to buy food and baby supplies.
“This mayor doesn’t seem to get it,” Sliwa fumed. “He takes care of the illegal aliens and forsakes his own people, especially the African-American poor and impoverished who elected him the mayor of the city of New York over me, Curtis Sliwa.”
Sliwa, 69, was arrested in August during an anti-immigration rally outside the mayor’s home, where his Guardian Angels were involved in a fight between protesters and counter-protesters.
In 1992, Sliwa admitted to faking at least six crimes, including his own kidnapping and a thwarted mugging, to gain publicity for his then-fledging vigilante group.