David Dennis Cox photographs of Guardian Angels demonstration

The Guardian Angels non-profit organization was founded in 1979 by Curtis Sliwa to address public safety concerns through unarmed citizen street patrols and community-based social services and advocacy. The Portland chapter of the Guardian Angels, established in 1983, led a march and demonstration on November 3, 1984, to bring attention to the Rajneeshee commune’s treatment of unhoused people. Protestors wearing the Angels’ signature red berets carried a coffin from the Baloney Joe's shelter at 313 East Burnside Street to the Hotel Rajneesh at 1115 SW 11th Avenue, where they handcuffed themselves to the hotel's front door and were subsequently arrested. The coffin symbolized the death of 28-year-old William Henry Allen, who had died that October of hypothermia outside a tavern in Government Camp, Oregon. Sliwa alleged that Allen was one of at least 1,500 unhoused people recruited by the Rajneeshees, then abandoned without means for survival.

Sources: "About The Guardian Angels," Guardian Angels website (undated, accessed July 2026), https://www.guardianangels.org/about; “Guardian Angels satisfied with results of 1st year in Portland,” by Rolla J. Crick, Oregonian, February 3, 1984, page E10; “7 ‘Angels’ arrested in Rajneesh protest,” by Linda Gilpin, Oregonian, November 4, 1984, page C1.