UES 1 Of NYC's Top Areas For Social Distancing Complaints: Study
UPPER EAST SIDE, NY — The Upper East Side is one of New York City's top neighborhoods when it comes to residents complaining about social distancing violations, according to a study conducted by the Legal Aid Society.
The area patrolled by the 19th NYPD precinct received 786 calls to 311 about social distancing between March 28 and May 12, the fifth most out of any precinct in the city and the second most out of any precinct in Manhattan, according to a Legal Aid Society study of the calls.
The Legal Aid Society analyzed the 311 data as part of a study showing that black and Latino New Yorkers are experiencing more aggressive enforcement — tickets and arrests — of social distancing rules, despite a roughly equal distribution of complaints across neighborhoods with both mostly white and mostly minority residents.
Despite the 19th Precinct's high number of 311 complaints, the Legal Aid Society found that officers made no arrests and issued zero summonses related to social distancing on the Upper East Side between March 28 and May 12.
The only police precinct in Manhattan topping the 19th in 311 complaints — the 34th precinct in Washington Heights and Inwood — saw seven summonses and one arrests in the same time span, according to the study.
The disparity in enforcement was more obvious in other neighborhoods.
The majority black and Latino precinct that covers southern Crown Heights had the highest rate of enforcement, with 3.3 percent of calls ending in arrest of a summons. 13 people were given tickets or arrested in this precinct while there were no arrests or summonses in neighboring areas like Park Slope, despite a similar number of calls.
Overall, 18 of the 20 precincts with the highest rates of known COVID-19 related arrests or summonses per 10,000 people occurred in majority black or Latino precincts, Legal Aid found.
About 79 percent of COVID-19 related summonses and 74 percent of COVID-19 related arrests for which the Legal Aid Society was able to identify a precinct occurred in majority black or Latino precincts.
The full study can be read here.
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This article originally appeared on the Upper East Side Patch
