Advocates demand probe into NYPD’s social distancing enforcement
Advocates who challenged the NYPD’s stop-and-frisk policing have requested that a federal judge appoint an independent monitor to review the department’s enforcement of social distancing amid the coronavirus outbreak, according to new court filings.
The attorneys filed a motion in Manhattan federal court asking that Peter Zimroth — the court-appointed monitor assigned to review stop-and-frisk — be tasked with investigating the NYPD’s social distancing enforcement.
They also requested a moratorium be placed on the enforcement until Zimroth’s investigation ends.
In the filing, the attorneys noted that 81 percent of summonses handed out by NYPD cops for violating social distancing went to black and Latino New ꧑Yorkers.
They also highlighted a number of videos and media reports that showed scuffles between New Yorkers and cops who were enforcing social dista꧋ncing guidelines.
“According to media coverage, one of these people was a Black man in Brownsville,” the court papers state.
“A video of his arrest went viral, showing him walking slowly up the street when the police ran up on him, grabbed him by the throat, tackled him to the ground, and handcuffed him,” it adds.
The 🐭filing also notes an apparent disproportionate response in precincts that are majority black and Latino.
Less than half of 311 calls about social distancing violations were made in precincts with majority-black and Latino populat♛ions, but more than 78 percent of summonses and arrests for violations occurred in those pr꧅ecincts, according to a tally by the Legal Aid Society.
At t🌱he same time, black and Latino communities have experienced a higher rate of infection and more severe cases of COVID-19, the filing notes.
“The NYPD’s discriminatory policing practices add insult to the catastrophic public health injury disproportionately impacting Black and Latinx communities,” it states.
After media coverage of the disparity, Mayor Bill de Blasio said the NYPD would no longer stop people for not wearing masks in public and social distancing in city p🐬arks would be left to the Parks Department.
Tuesday’s motion was filed by advocates including the NAACP, the Legal Defense and Educational Fund and the Legal Aid Society, which previously brought landmark stop-and-frisk class-action suits against the NYPD.
In one of those cases, Floyd v. City of New York, a federal judge ruled the NYPD practiced widespread raciaꦦl profiling and unconsಞtitutional stops.
“While the Department is fully cooperating with multiple inquiries regardi꧑ng the enforcement of COVID related violations, the issue falls outside the scope of the federal Monitorship,” Jeffrey Schlanger, the NYPD’s Deputy Commissioner for Risk Management, said in a statement.
At a press conference Tuesday, 🌜de Blasio said his administration had worked closely with the stop-and-frisk monitor and said he cares about the disparity in enforcement.
“Any incident where the dynamic between police and community weren’t what we wanted them to be — police officers didn’t handle things right — we care about,” de Blasio said.
“Any time where there’s disparity, I care about that, the department cares about that, we have to fix it,” he added.