Tag Archives: New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio

New York AG sues NYC police for excessive force against protesters

(Reuters) – New York’s state attorney general on Thursday sued New York City Mayor Bill De Blasio and the city’s police commissioner over allegations the police used excessive force against racial justice protesters after the killing of George Floyd in May.

The federal lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Manhattan alleges the police repeatedly and without justification used batons and other physical force against protesters, many of whom were never charged with a crime, causing broken bones and concussions among other injuries.

The lawsuit said the police violated protesters’ rights, and is seeking a court order to mandate policies, training and monitoring to assure an end to practices it characterized as unlawful.

In addition to excessive force, state Attorney General Letitia James alleged police detained hundreds of protesters, medics and observers without probable cause. She also accused the police of controlling crowds through “kettling,” or corralling them without giving them a chance to depart, and making mass arrests.

De Blasio said in a statement he supported major discipline reforms but opposed the lawsuit.

“A court process and the added bureaucracy of a federal monitor will not speed up this work,” he said.

The Black Lives Matter protests in May and June became an international movement prompted in part by anger over Floyd, a Black man killed by a white Minneapolis policeman, and Breonna Taylor, a Black woman slain in her Louisville, Kentucky, home by white policemen during a botched raid.

In late May, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo expressed alarm over “disturbing violent clashes” between New York Police Department officers and protesters, and appointed James to investigate and produce a report.

At two days of virtual hearings in June, protesters described being beaten and pepper-sprayed by officers during marches that followed Floyd’s death.

At the time, de Blasio and Police Commissioner Dermot Shea defended the NYPD’s response to protesters as mostly proportionate, saying misconduct was limited to isolated cases that were being investigated.

Both have pointed to several nights of looting that marked some of the earlier protests, widespread property damage and instances of protesters hurling projectiles at police officers, injuring them.

In her preliminary report in July, James recommended that the mayor give up sole control over the police commissioner’s hiring.

In December, a separate report by the New York City Department of Investigation found the NYPD used excessive force and blamed the response on the failure of most officers to receive “relevant training” in policing such protests.

(Reporting by Tom Hals in Wilmington, Delaware; editing by Jonathan Oatis and Chizu Nomiyama)

‘We’re going to run out’: New York urges U.S. to increase vaccine supply

By Maria Caspani and Jonathan Allen

NEW YORK (Reuters) – New York officials said on Monday that they feared efforts to accelerate the vaccination of people against the novel coronavirus will be hampered by an insufficient supply of doses from the U.S. government.

In New York City, Mayor Bill de Blasio has said he wants to vaccinate 1 million residents, about an eighth of the population, by the end of January.

So far, about 194,000 people in the city have received at least the first of two doses of a vaccine. The city has another 230,000 doses on hand, and is expecting to receive another 100,000 this week, officials said on Monday.

“We’re going to run out of doses in the next few weeks if we don’t get more of a supply coming in,” de Blasio told reporters.

Second shots of the two vaccines authorized so far are supposed to be given three or four weeks after the first.

The slow rollout of vaccinations has yet to make a dent in the health crisis as the pandemic continues to surge across the United States, claiming on average about 3,200 lives each day over the last week. COVID-19 has killed more than 374,000 people in the United States since the pandemic began.

Still, some public health experts have noted that no U.S. state, including New York, has so far come close to using up its federal allotments of vaccines, according to data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

This is due in part to the slow expansion of a patchwork system of vaccination centers and, in some instances, rigid rules that sharply limit who can receive a vaccine.

States in recent days have been adding vaccination capacity with the ad hoc conversion of sports venues, convention halls and empty schools into vaccine centers.

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo relented last week on his demand that all healthcare workers be offered a vaccine before members of other vulnerable groups become eligible, which led to hundreds of doses being wasted as half-finished vials were discarded at the end of each day.

He has since said that certain groups of other essential workers and people over age 75 as of Monday can make appointments to receive a shot. In contrast, Texas and Florida have been vaccinating people over age 65 since late December, although reports from those states have indicated that demand has far outstripped available vaccination appointments.

There are now over 4 million people in New York state eligible to receive the vaccine out of a population of about 19 million, Cuomo said on Monday at his annual State of the State Address, but only about 1 million doses on hand.

“We only receive 300,000 doses per week from the federal government,” he said. “At this rate, it will take us 14 weeks, just to receive enough dosages for those currently eligible.”

(Reporting by Maria Caspani and Jonathan Allen in New York; Additional reporting by Anurag Maan; Editing by Bill Berkrot)

New York City public schools to close on Thursday as COVID-19 cases rise: mayor

(Reuters) – New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said on Wednesday that the city’s public school district, the largest in the U.S., would be closed for in-person learning starting on Thursday to ward off the increasing spread of COVID-19.

“New York City has reached the 3% testing positivity 7-day average threshold. Unfortunately, this means public school buildings will be closed as of tomorrow, Thursday Nov. 19, out (of) an abundance of caution. We must fight back the second wave of COVID-19,” the mayor said on Twitter.

(Reporting by Gabriella Borter; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)

Fears of COVID-19 resurgence spread to East Coast as grim U.S. records mount

By Maria Caspani and Anurag Maan

NEW YORK (Reuters) – As COVID-19 infections, hospitalizations and deaths surge across the United States, more signs emerged that a second wave could engulf areas of the Northeast, which managed to bring the pandemic under control after being battered last spring.

In New Jersey, one of the early U.S. hotspots, a spike in cases in Newark, the state’s largest city, prompted Mayor Ras Baraka to implement aggressive measures, including a mandatory curfew for certain areas, to contain the spread of the virus.

New York state and city officials also reported a worrying rise in the seven-day average infection rate that raised the specter of stricter mitigation measures adopted at the height of the pandemic.

“This is our LAST chance to stop a second wave,” New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio wrote on Twitter on Wednesday as he announced the seven-day average positivity rate citywide was 2.52%. The city’s public school system, the largest in the country, would have to shut down if that figure reached 3%.

“We can do it, but we have to act NOW,” he said.

The United States as a whole reported more than 1,450 deaths on Tuesday, the highest single-day count since mid-August, according to a Reuters analysis.

U.S. COVID-19 cases climbed for seven days straight to reach more than 136,000 as of late Tuesday while hospitalizations, a key metric of the pandemic, crossed 60,000 for the first time since the pandemic began.

In Newark, the positivity rate hovered at 19%, more than double the state’s 7.74% seven-day average, Baraka said in a statement released on Tuesday.

“Stricter measures are required in the city’s hotspots in order to contain the virus and limit the spread,” he said.

New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy announced some restrictions on Monday in response to a rise in COVID-19 cases in the state, and outbreaks among bartenders.

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said in a press release on Tuesday that New York’s positivity rate had climbed above 3% for the first time in weeks.

In Maryland, where the positivity rate stood at 5.6% on Wednesday, officials warned about rising COVID-19 hospitalizations. More than 800 people were being treated for the coronavirus at state hospitals as of Wednesday, according to Mike Ricci, the communications director of Governor Larry Hogan, the highest daily count since April, a Reuters tally showed.

A record number of people died of coronavirus in several Midwest and western states on Tuesday, including in Alaska, Indiana, Missouri, North Dakota, Wisconsin and Wyoming.

Officials in states hardest-hit by the virus pleaded with residents to stay home as much as possible and heed the advice of experts by wearing masks, washing their hands and social distancing.

“It’s not safe to go out, it’s not safe to have others over — it’s just not safe. And it might not be safe for a while yet,” Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers said during a primetime address on Tuesday. “So, please, cancel the happy hours, dinner parties, sleepovers and playdates at your home.”

(Reporting by Maria Caspani in New York and Anurag Maan in Bengaluru, Editing by Nick Macfie)

New York governor expects coronavirus rates to continue rising into winter

By Jonathan Allen

NEW YORK (Reuters) – New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said on Monday he expected the rate of positive tests for the novel coronavirus to continue rising in the state into winter.

Both the state and New York City have seen positive test rates creep above 2% again in recent days in what Cuomo called a “new phase” of the coronavirus’s spread.

“The numbers are undeniable,” he told reporters on a conference call. “The best you can do is manage the increase.” He said cases may continue to rise until a vaccine became widely available.

Earlier on Monday, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio warned that the city may soon enter a second wave of infections after grappling with what at the time was the world’s worst outbreak of COVID-19 earlier this year.

He said New Yorkers might see restrictions reintroduced, saying he now thought indoor dining at restaurants, even at restricted capacity, should be reconsidered, though he said that decision ultimately rested with Cuomo.

Stricter rules in nearby New Jersey were announced by Governor Phil Murphy on Monday in response to a rise in COVID-19 cases in the Garden State, and outbreaks among bartenders at several establishments.

New rules ban service while sitting at the bar and end indoor dining – still limited to 25 percent capacity – at 10 p.m., although outdoor dining is permitted to continue.

“As the night wears on people let their hair down and folks are just not social distancing as they should,” Murphy told a press conference.

He also announced the shutdown of interstate indoor youth sports events, up to and including high school age athletes, after seeing transmission increases among young team members, particularly those playing indoor hockey.

Across the Hudson River, New York City officials said they are worried about a new uptick in cases on Staten Island, one of the city’s five boroughs, and said they would spend Tuesday encouraging island residents to get a free test.

(Reporting by Jonathan Allen; Additional reporting by Barbara Goldberg; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama/Mark Heinrich)