Black, Brown New Yorkers Get 80% Of NYPD Social Distance Summons

NEW YORK CITY — Black and brown New Yorkers received more than 80 percent of social distancing summons handed out by cops during the new coronavirus pandemic, NYPD data show.

Police released data Thursday after a spate of videos showing the violent arrests of people of color over social distancing spurred outrage and accusations of racial bias.

The data does not disprove the theory. Out of 374 summons issued between March 16 and May 5, 193 went to Black New Yorkers and 111 to Hispanic New Yorkers, NYPD data show.

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Police did not include data on city arrests, but district attorneys in Brooklyn and Queens released data from their boroughs.

Brooklyn saw the most social distance enforcement with 206 summons issued and 40 arrests, police said. Only one of those arrested in Brooklyn was white, 35 were Black and four Hispanic.

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Mayor Bill de Blasio denied social distancing enforcement is a return to the racially-fraught days of "stop-and-frisk," and, when asked to comment by reporters Friday, told them, "check my Twitter feed."

Politicians and police representatives both responded with anger and frustration.

"Speechless," wrote Public Advocate Jumaane Williams. "Even after all we've seen and known, this is egregious."

The Police Benevolent Association union, which has repeatedly criticized de Blasio's decision to task cops with social distance enforcement, once again took the opportunity to chastise the mayor.

"Your strategy is clear: stick to your bad policy and let the cops on the street take the blame for implementing it," the PBA tweeted in response to de Blasio.

Friday morning, de Blasio Friday didn't back down from his decision, but argued the data released presented too small a dataset to show a trend.

"It's so small, not belittling the experience that people go through at all, but it's such a small number," de Blasio said.

"The most important thing to me here is that very little use of summons and arrests has been necessary."