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De Blasio Administration Still Refusing To Release Social Distancing Arrest Data By Race
By
Jake Offenhartz
Published May 12, 2020
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By
Jake Offenhartz
Published May 12, 2020
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More than a week after Mayor Bill de Blasio and Police Commissioner Dermot Shea pledged to release demographic information on social distancing arrests, the NYPD still hasn’t released the widely-sought data.
Instead, on Tuesday the city released a broad data set showing the racial breakdown of all "COVID-19 related arrests," many of them entirely unrelated to social distancing enforcement.
There have been 125 of those arrests in total, according to the NYPD, including bank robberies, hate crimes and weapons charges vaguely linked to the pandemic. Of those arrests, 66.4 of alleged suspects were black, 24 percent were Hispanic, 7.2 percent were white, and 2.4 percent were Asian.
"These are not social distancing arrests," asserted the NYPD email accompanying the data. "The crimes are characterized as COVID-19 related due to the circumstances of occurrence, remarks made by the arrestee at the time of the alleged crime or afterward, or statements made by a victim."
Jennvive Wong, an attorney with the Legal Aid Society's Cop Accountability Project, called the NYPD tallies "baffling and meaningless," adding that the department was "obscuring social distancing enforcement."
Inquiries to the NYPD about whether they planned to release data focused on arrests stemming from social distancing offenses, as demanded by a range of elected officials and community advocates, were not returned.
"It's unacceptable that the administration has still not released complete demographic data on social distancing arrests despite our office and many others having called for it for more than a month," Public Advocate Jumaane Williams said in a statement to Gothamist on Tuesday.
A spokesperson for the Mayor's Office, Olivia Lapeyrolerie, disputed the idea that the NYPD had reneged on its previous commitment.
"The Police Department is being transparent with New Yorkers about the fact that these interactions are complex," she said. "What might start in a social distancing stop might end in an arrest for possession of a weapon or resisting arrest."
Indeed, a string of videos in recent weeks have shown NYPD officers stopping men of color for alleged social distancing infractions, then violently arresting them on other low-level charges like obstructing governmental administration or disorderly conduct.
Wong noted that the demographic breakdown of these arrests could be easily compiled by the department, without lumping in other crimes that bear no connection to social distancing enforcement. One arrest included in the NYPD's total is an alleged bank robber who told a teller that he had the virus, according to the NYPD.
Some local district attorneys offices have managed to separate social distancing enforcement from other types of arrests. According to Brooklyn DA Eric Gonzalez, the borough has seen 40 arrests related to social distancing, all but one of which of has involved a black or Hispanic New Yorker.
The NYPD's own enforcement data has shown that black New Yorkers have received the bulk of summonses for social distancing offenses.
According to the new arrest data shared by the department, the Bronx has seen 46 COVID-19 related arrests, followed by Brooklyn with 39, Queens with 22, and Manhattan with 19. There have been no such arrests recorded in Staten Island. The department did not specify the neighborhoods where the arrests occurred.
"We already know that this enforcement is overwhelmingly doled out in communities of color, so it seems short-sighted that the NYPD didn't know how to [track this]," added Wong. "It shows they don’t really have the commitment to addressing this history of racially discriminatory enforcement in general."
Tagged
social distancing
COVID-19
coronavirus
mayor bill de blasio
nypd
Jake Offenhartz
Jake Offenhartz is a former Gothamist reporter.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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