Activists' video appearing to show Guardian Angel kicking man on Q train goes viral

A new video appearing to show a member of a well-known patrol group getting into a physical altercation with a subway rider Thursday is getting a lot of attention on Twitter.

News 12 Staff

Feb 6, 2021, 1:15 AM

Updated 1,405 days ago

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A new video appearing to show a member of a well-known patrol group getting into a physical altercation with a subway rider Thursday is getting a lot of attention on Twitter. 
The man recording the video is activist Patrick Bobilin, who says the incident happened around 9 p.m. Thursday after leaving a protest in Manhattan. 
The video appears to show a member of the Guardian Angels kick a man on the Q train. 
"They saw that I had a sign with me that said, 'abolition now' and they started engaging with me. I told him to back off. I put my hand up. I'm holding my phone and my gloves in one hand and tell him to back off,” said Bobilin. 
That’s when Bobilin says the Guardian Angel kicked him and another man on the train, and a second Guardian Angel got involved. 
"The other fellow who was, I think he was at the protest, jumped up and pushed this guy to the ground because he didn't want to see me attacked. There was a second Guardian Angel, and he comes up and squares up to punch this guy who defended me and then, you know, people from the train start to intervene,” said Bobilin. 
The Guardian Angels is a patrol group known for their efforts to keep local communities safe. Bobilin says their actions Thursday were anything but. 
"There's a great irony to seeing the Guardian Angels enacting the kind of violence that they claim to be there to interrupt,” said Bobilin. 
A police report on the incident has not been filed. But after posting the video, Bobilin says he’s hoping to prevent incidents like this from happening again. 
"I hope people start to see the cracks, start to see how they really behave to people who are not bothering them at all,” said Bobilin. 
News 12 has reached out to Guardian Angels for comment and hasn’t heard back yet.