De Blasio Extends Curfew to Tuesday Night After More Looting

(Bloomberg) -- New York Mayor Bill de Blasio extended a citywide curfew to a second night after more looting erupted in midtown Manhattan.

The original curfew was imposed from 11 p.m. Monday to 5 a.m. after weekend protests of the death of George Floyd led to violence in the most populous U.S. city.

The police department sent 8,000 officers into the streets, doubling its presence in areas where there was violent property damage, according to a joint statement from de Blasio and New York Governor Andrew Cuomo announcing the initial curfew. But the looting continued, so the mayor late Monday announced an extension of the restrictions, from 8 p.m. Tuesday to 5 a.m.

Violence by protesters “obscures the righteousness of the message,” Cuomo said earlier Monday at a press briefing. “It plays into the hands of people and forces who don't want to make changes.”

In Washington, which has also been shaken by looting, arson and vandalism near the White House and beyond, Mayor Muriel Bowser announced a curfew from 7 p.m. until 6 a.m. The curfew is five hours earlier than one imposed Sunday night. Bowser told reporters Monday that “the vast majority of people” obeyed that restriction, allowing the police to focus on “those people who were intent on breaking the law.”

On Sunday night, the New York Police Department arrested about 400 people as property damage and violence pervaded the city, said Commissioner Dermot Shea.

“We can't let violence undermine the message of this moment,” de Blasio said in the joint statement. “We agree on the need for swift action.”

Cities across the U.S. are being torn by protests over years of incidents between white police officers and black residents. The case of Floyd, a Minneapolis black man who died after a white police officer knelt on his neck for several minutes, is one of dozens, Cuomo said. He cited the 2014 death in New York of Eric Garner, an unarmed black man who died after he was placed in a prohibited chokehold by a white police officer. The officer was fired, but not until 2019.

“Use this moment to galvanize public support,” the governor said. “Use that outrage to actually make a change.”

It's unclear how a curfew will be enforced in a densely populated city of more than 8 million, many of whose residents chafed at its police department's stop-and-frisk tactics for years.

‘Extremely Concerned'

The move had few supporters in the City Council. Its leader, Council Speaker Corey Johnson, said deploying more police would not encourage de-escalation of tension. “We need the NYPD to stop meeting protests against police brutality with more police brutality,” he said.

The Legal Aid Society of New York, which includes the city's public defender office, criticized the curfew and expressed fears that minorities and the poor will bear the brunt of any police enforcement actions.

“We are extremely concerned that the doubling of police presence across the city will come with devastating consequences,” the society said in a statement released by spokeswoman Alejandra Lopez.

Chris Parra, a 22-year-old educational assistant who lives in the Bronx, said he is concerned about the destruction that's happened in the past several nights, but thinks the curfew is heavy-handed.

“Not everybody's protesting by destroying things,” he said. “It's overkill and overuse of power.”

The protests are happening as New York City, ravaged by the coronavirus pandemic, prepares to reopen June 8 after weeks of lockdown. Public officials have expressed concern that the protests could spark fresh Covid-19 outbreaks, but Cuomo said the state won't know for weeks.

“We have to be smart tonight in this city,” the governor said.

New York hasn't imposed a citywide curfew in modern memory.

In 1988, police tried to enforce a 1 a.m. deadline in 10-acre Tompkins Square Park in Manhattan's East Village to prevent outbreaks of violence between gentrifiers, homeless squatters and bohemian artists and musicians. In 1969, another failed in Greenwich Village as crowds of counterculture types came out to protest it.

A citywide curfew was proposed during a wave of juvenile gang activity in 1959, but outrage arose over officers' use of night sticks on young offenders. Then-Mayor Robert F. Wagner decided against an age-related curfew and banned the use of the weapon, according to a compilation of mayoral news conferences published by WNYC radio in 2017.

“We want to see these hoodlums off the streets of New York,” Wagner said at the time. “But we also have to be sure that we do not be accused of police brutality.”

In 1943, Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia issued a curfew in Harlem to quell an uprising sparked by a white police officer shooting a black soldier who had come to the aid of a woman getting arrested. Five people were killed during the protests.