ALBANY, N.Y. — The Guardian Angels are on patrol again this week and they're training their new recruits.

The group arrived in Albany amid growing violence in the city earlier this month, and now the leader says they intend to stay.

Founder Curtis Sliwa says longtime members will come up to Albany from New York every Tuesday to help those newer members learn the ropes and patrol independently.

A big lesson today: the citizen's arrest. Teaching recruits when to stop someone and how to do it safely.

Sliwa has faced some criticism for his work, and was called an outsider by some in the community, but he has some questions of his own.

"I would think I know a little bit more about the streets of Albany than the new police chief, I wish him the best of luck but it seems to me the mayor is speaking with some hypocrisy, ‘We want someone who is local who knows the street,’ yet you find someone from Leave it to Beaver, Michigan,” he said.

Sliwa says the Guardian Angels hope to sit down with Mayor Sheehan and the police chief Thursday.

The mayor's chief of staff tweeted earlier in the day that the meeting request was denied.