81 Percent of NYPD's Social Distancing Summonses Were Issued to Blacks and Latinos: 'It's the New Stop and Frisk'

By Adrian Carrasquillo of Newsweek. Excerpts:

"Data released Friday by the New York Police Department (NYPD) shows that 81 percent of coronavirus enforcement summonses from March 16 to May 5 were issued to black and Latino residents.

"Of the 374 summonses issued in regard to social distancing, the respondents for 193 of those summonses are black and the respondents for 111 of those summonses are Hispanic," an NYPD press release said.

"It's the new form of stop-and-frisk," Melissa Mark-Viverito, the former New York City Council Speaker and current congressional candidate for New York's 15th district, told Newsweek. "We went through this battle with stop-and-frisk, of the disproportionate enforcement and over-criminalizing of our communities. It's a mentality that continues to permeate, but unfortunately, it doesn't surprise me."

Whites, who are 32 percent of the population of New York City, only received 51 summonses, accounting for 13 percent of them.

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The data comes after images and videos were widely shared online of police interactions with residents of color that drew criticism, including officer Francisco X. Garcia violently knocking down a bystander after a social distancing violation by two separate people. In the cellphone video, Garcia can be seen angrily throwing the bystander, who is black, to the ground while repeatedly punching him and sitting on him until another officer handcuffed him."

The data on summonses comes just a day after the Brooklyn district attorney's office released arrest figures showing that out of the 40 people who were arrested due to coronavirus social-distancing enforcement, 35 were black, four were Latino, and one was white."