New York City officials have been criticized for their enforcement of social distancing laws after arrest data revealed that 68% of those arrested were black.
From March 16 to May 5, New York City Police Department officers engaged with 1 million people to advise them on social distancing guidelines. During that time, they distributed 368 summonses and 120 arrests, according to records obtained by CBS 2. Of those arrests, 68% were black, 24% were Hispanic, and nearly 7% were white.
Many of the arrests have been criticized, including the aggressive detention of a 15-year-old that was filmed and posted online. The disproportionate arrests of black individuals led some to compare social distancing guidelines to the controversial “stop and frisk” laws the city once had in place.
“It’s the new stop and frisk,” attorney Sanford Rubenstein told CBS 2.
Rev. Kevin McCall agreed, adding, “They are not dealing with this issue in the white community. But in the black community, we are being harassed. We are being beaten.”
Police Commissioner Dermot Shea defended the work of his officers and noted that very few arrests were made compared to the 1 million interactions officers had while enforcing social distancing.
“We have been enforcing citywide with an extremely light touch,” he said. “We have had millions of contacts with people and a handful of summonses, violations, and arrests. I don’t want to turn the NYPD into the morality police.”
Police Chief Jeffrey Maddrey, who is the commanding officer of Brooklyn North, said the videos of officers aggressively arresting people over social distancing violations were not the standard.
“A lot of these videos, cooler heads didn’t prevail,” he said, adding, “Tensions just got a little too hot. We are not targeting a particular neighborhood.”
