(VIDEO IN EXTENDED ARTICLE)
Curtis Sliwa, the popular talk show host and founder of the Guardian Angel, was arrested on Tuesday morning outside Gracie Mansion in Manhattan.
The incident was apparently filmed by someone working for Sliwa, and loaded to his YouTube Channel moments later.
Sliwa was attempting to serve Mayor Bill de Blasio a lawsuit when he was arrested by NYPD officers.
The NY Post cited a tweet by political activist Michael Faulkner on the arrest: “Curtis Sliwa was just arrested outside Gracie Mansion for serving Bill de Blasio with papers to disqualify him for WFP ballot line#yeswewill.”
4 Responses
There is probably a way to serve legal process on the Mayor without personally handing him/her the papers. But if you are a publicity-seeking guy with a radio show who needs to keep his ratings up, you would go for personal service and arrange for the video-recording of your arrest. So goofy.
Given his relationship with a female Jewish politician, perhaps news of Sliwa doesn’t belong here.
As a foreigner I looked up Mayor Bill de Blasio’s political affiliation. Wikipedia labels him a Democrat. I also looked up the NY Post, which states:
> Michel Faulkner, a candidate for New York City comptroller
How is it that this article references the NY Post yet comes up with “political activist Michael Faulkner” which is a characterization I did not find in the NY Post article?
Further the NY Post gives Sliwa’s version of events that the mayor (or his guards?) called the 19th precinct which brought 4 police cars and 20 officers. NY Daily News quotes his girlfriend as claiming 20 police cars. It quote SIlwa as complaining that what happened was that he was promised that a staffer would come out to talk to him, which did not happen, which is why he was forced into the position he was.
The lawsuit is apparently about a dispute over two “third parties” in some election – the Reform Party (Sliwa) and Working Families Party (supported by the mayor). The Board of Elections rejected one name Albanese from the slate of the Reform Party “because there had not been votes of each individual county committee”. Sliwa makes two claims. One, that rule does not apply to a new party running its FIRST candidate when the new party does not have enough members to form a full 5 committees. Second, that the Working Families Party itself “has long chosen candidates for mayor by relying on votes from its executive committee rather than county parties” That would invalidate the mayor himself from runhning!