NEW YORK (AP) - In
New York City, they’ve started dismantling basketball hoops to prevent
people from gathering in parks and playing. In Lakewood, New Jersey, police
broke up a wedding being held in violation of a ban on large gatherings. And
in Austin, Texas, officers are encouraging people to call a hotline to
snitch on violators of the city’s orders for people to stay home.
Police departments
are taking a lead role in enforcing social distancing guidelines that health
officials say are critical to containing COVID-19. Along with park rangers,
fire inspectors and other public servants, officers more accustomed to
chasing suspects and solving crimes are spending these troubled days
cajoling people to stay at least 6 feet apart.
“We’re used to
crowds, we’re used to lines, we’re used to being close together,” New York
City Mayor Bill de Blasio said at a briefing this week. “No more.”
The no-more mandate
has forced the New York Police Department - a squad that normally prides
itself on protecting packed crowds like the ones at the Times Square New
Year’s Eve celebration - into service dispersing small groups of people on
city streets and public spaces.
Instead of the
threat of terrorism, they’re trying to stop the spread of a silent killer
that as of Thursday had left more than 1,000 people dead in the U.S., at
least 280 of them in New York City - all while trying to avoid using a heavy
hand.
For starters, the
nation’s largest police department made thousands of visits to bars and
restaurants to make sure they were observing a shutdown of dine-in services
imposed this month, resulting in warnings but only a handful of citations.
Now comes an effort
to impose restrictions in parks, playgrounds, housing project courtyards and
sidewalks, where some people to congregate out of habit or indifference as
temperatures rise. On Wednesday, de Blasio said the city was removing
basketball hoops at 80 of its 1,700 public courts - places where he said
people were ignoring instructions not to shoot around with anyone outside
their household.
Enforcement also
will include marked patrol cars driving through Brooklyn’s Prospect Park and
other popular outdoor escapes around the city, broadcasting recorded
reminders about the importance of social distancing.
NYPD video shot in
Manhattan’s Lower East Side and posted on Twitter showed a squad car slowly
rolling down a nearly empty street - occupied by just two people running on
opposite sides of the street - and playing a message that implores, “Please
help us keep you safe.”
In addition, the
city is mobilizing departments to form roving enforcement teams for the
effort, including members of the fire and parks departments and the mayor’s
community affairs unit.
People are not
being discouraged from getting out for a breath of fresh air solo, as
couples or as families. But other activities like team sports or gatherings
like outdoor family barbecues are going to be shut down, de Blasio said.
“If we see people
in groups, we’re going to break them up,” he said. “If we see a place that’s
too crowded, we are going to get people to disperse.”
De Blasio said he
would even consider closing playgrounds as soon as Saturday if families
don’t follow new rules to “not overcrowd them” or allowing “kids playing
with kids outside their own family.”
In New Jersey,
police charged three people in recent days for holding large gatherings in
defiance of a state ban. In San Jose, Calif., officers have checked 369
businesses for compliance and issued their first citation on Wednesday. If
the city’s parks and trails continue to be crowded with residents,
authorities could be forced to step up their enforcement - which Chief Eddie
Garcia said could be difficult to determine.
“They can’t play
‘red light, green light’ and say ‘everybody, freeze! Let’s get a tape
measure out!’ “ he said.
In New York City,
officers patrolling recreation areas and enforcing social distancing this
week were seeing “a lot of empty soccer fields and a lot of empty basketball
courts, which is good,” NYPD Chief of Department Terence Monahan said.
For now, the
department is trying to avoid a more lax approach used in Italy that is
believed to have only fueled infection rates, while avoiding any semblance
of the Big Brother-type crackdown in China.