Mayor de Blasio upset some people with his message regarding the NYPD enforcing social distancing.
Over the week, some alarming videos surfaced the Internet of police interactions with black and brown people. We covered one of the instances where Officer Francisco Garcia was involved in an encounter that resulted in him getting stripped of his badge/gun for the way he handled the situation. He was also placed on desk duty, take a look here.
Many of the scenarios are similar to the situation above. From what we see in the videos, police using what some may consider excessive force. In one video, a black man had his hands behind his back and then the officer repeatedly punched him (It happened on the West Coast, which shows that this “tactic” is happening in more places.) Take a look:
The NY Times released an article where it released the stats the Brooklyn district attorney’s found on social-distancing enforcement. In BK from March 17 – May 4, police arrested 40 people for social-distancing violations and 35 of the people are black. The tactics that some police officers are using are similar to stop and frisk, which can lead to unnecessary racial profiling.
De Blasio responded to the Times article in a tweet and said,
“Saving lives in this pandemic is job one. The NYPD uses summonses and arrests to do it. Most people practice social distancing, with only hundreds of summonses issued over 6 weeks. But the disparity in the numbers does NOT reflect our values. We HAVE TO do better and we WILL.” See Tweet here.
CW: Police Violence
Cell phone video shot last night in Brooklyn, shows an NYPD officer punching a Black teenager in the head as he is lying on the ground with his hands cuffed behind his back.
The cop then takes the person filming into custody.pic.twitter.com/Ek1bT0iK3G
— Rebecca Kavanagh (@DrRJKavanagh) May 5, 2020
No mask? No problem.
This park-goer in Domino Park didn't have a mask, no problem, our task force officers were more than happy to provide her with one. pic.twitter.com/qgSo1li2VH
— NYPD NEWS (@NYPDnews) May 2, 2020
https://www.instagram.com/p/B_3oz9uJ0DI/?igshid=juvpw326r6ec