Guardian Angels called unwelcome

Police Commissioner Edward F. Davis yesterday spurned an offer by the Alliance of Guardian Angels to bring their red berets and street patrols to Boston, but the New York-based group said it doesn't need his permission and plans to help anyway.

"We applaud volunteerism," Davis said. "In this case, you have somebody from 250 miles [away] that's coming into a community and exploiting a tragic situation. . . . Responsible community people and responsible members of the neighborhoods who are affected by this [violence] are the people we really want to do our outreach to."

The commissioner said the timing of the Guardian Angels' offer, days after the shooting death of 22-year-old Chiara Levin outside an after-hours party in Dorchester, seems curious.

The Guardian Angels' founder, Curtis Sliwa, said he is responding to a groundswell of public support, including pleas from about a half-dozen former Angels who live in Boston and are increasingly concerned by the city's violent crime surge. The number of homicides is up; there have been 13 this year, compared to nine at the same time last year. The number of shootings overall, however, has dropped 23 percent compared to last year.

Sliwa said he hopes to meet with police officials tomorrow and hopes to get their input.

"We can do it without the cooperation of the police," he said in a telephone interview. "Hopefully, we won't have to do that."

Sliwa said critics who suggest his group engages in vigilantism are wrong. He said he makes sure all his volunteers undergo extensive training.

"Twenty-eight years, nine countries, 82 cities," he said. "We've done many interventions and hundreds of citizens' arrests, and we've never even been sued. There's a track record."

Some residents and community leaders suggested yesterday that the Guardian Angels will not make any difference.

"Regardless of how many cops or whatever you have on the streets, these shootings are still going to happen," said Khalia Smith, 17, of Dorchester. "The problem is these males. They don't care who they shoot."

Jorge Martinez -- executive director of Project RIGHT, an antiviolence organization in Grove Hall -- said he remembers the Guardian Angels from their last stint in Boston.

"I'm for bodies out here doing good work, but we need to come up with resources . . . and make them sustainable, so we have people of our own out here who know the youth," he said. "We need to make sure our house is in order before we invite other people in."

The Guardian Angels were founded in New York in 1979. The group came to Boston in 1981 and once had 200 members patrolling Mission Hill, Roxbury, and the South End. By the early 1990s, however, resentment by some residents and administrative problems led the local group to effectively shut down in 1992.

Davis hinted at this troubled history, saying he will not meet with Sliwa, but will instead dispatch another department representative to "find out what he wants to do, what his intentions are, and then make sure that whatever he does . . . his rights are protected."

"It's also important to set some ground rules . . . because Mr. Sliwa's safety is uppermost in our minds," Davis said. "I would recommend against any kind of confrontation when out on the street. . . . There's certainly a culture of guns out there."

Brian R. Ballou of the Globe staff contributed to this report. Suzanne Smalley can be reached at ssmalley@globe.com.