Between March 16, 2020 and May 10, 2020, the New York City Police Department made 125 CoViD-19 related arrests.
These are not social distancing arrests. Many were responses to calls for service where there was a clear victim and police took necessary action. 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.
The circumstances around the arrests included for example, hate crimes, domestic violence incidents, weapons possession, altercations caused by jumping a line while waiting to enter a supermarket, felony warrants as well as other violent felonies, and resisting arrest. One arrest even included a bank robber who presented a note to a teller that said, “This is a bank robbery, I have CoViD.”
Charges included felony assault, criminal possession of a weapon, criminal possession of a controlled substance and numerous other felony and misdemeanor offenses.
The racial breakdown for all CoViD-19 related arrests was 66.4 percent Black and 24 percent Hispanic: 90.4 percent. The remainder of the arrestees were 7.2 percent White and 2.4 percent Asian.
Note:
All statistics are preliminary and subject to further analysis, revisions, or change.
