New York City Police Commissioner Dermot Shea defended his department’s decision to shut down the funeral of a rabbi on Tuesday night.
The rabbi’s funeral drew hundreds of mourners, but it was quickly broken up by police. Twelve summonses were distributed to mourners who either broke social distancing orders or refused to disperse. During a press conference on Wednesday, Shea defended the decision to shut down the funeral and vowed to do the same to any future gathering until the pandemic has subsided.
“Arrests are the far extreme. There have been some summonses, really not a lot, and usually, it’s been a mutual cooperation,” he said of the city’s policing. “Here’s the only thing that’s changed: We are beyond, at this point, asking people to comply. We cannot have, for the third time, what we had last night.”
He continued, “That is irrespective of any religion, any race, any part of this city. It is simply putting you at risk. It is putting your families at risk. It is putting the critical workers at risk that are already risking their lives, saying goodbye to their children, and going into the unknown in emergency rooms across this city every day. And it’s certainly, for the last time, putting my cops at risk.”
Shea noted that his department lost two detectives this week and abstained from having funerals because of the pandemic. He added, “There is no reason that anyone in this city cannot do the same in this unprecedented time.”
On Tuesday night, Mayor Bill de Blasio singled out the Jewish community for breaking social distancing guidelines in a series of tweets that some found to be anti-Semitic.
