More than 1,300 protesters and some essential workers who were cuffed and detained for staying out past the de Blasio administration’s 8 p.m. curfew now face possible jail time or hundreds of dollars in a fine.
But the district attorneys in Brooklyn, Bronx, and Manhattan, where the bulk of arrests occurred, have yet to say whether they’ll dismiss the curfew violations—which were slapped onto protesters as criminal summons. The class B Misdemeanor is punishable with a fine of up to $500 and as much as three months in jail or both, according to New York State penal code. Previously, the DAs have made public statements vowing to dismiss low-level charges—like unlawful assembly.
More than half of arrests and detainments during demonstrations in the wake of the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis were for violating Mayor Bill de Blasio’s historic curfew, which lasted six nights. Protesters were often met with anaggressive and violent response from the NYPD. The curfew was implemented to stop looting after Midtown, SoHo, and parts of the Bronx were gutted and vandalized.
Protesters are due in summons court starting in late September. Bronx protester Iliana said she was among those beaten with batons by cops and kettled in Mott Haven June 4th, and has a summons pending for violating de Blasio’s curfew.
"It's upsetting because I was wrongfully detained before curfew," she told us. "It is definitely nerve-wracking. You don't really know what’s gonna happen until you show up to court."
If a judge orders her to pay a fine, she said she'd be "paying $500 in addition to the violence I experienced."
A de Blasio spokesperson declined to comment on what an equitable punishment for violation of his curfew would be, and deferred to his earlier statements. The mayor has repeatedly defended the curfew and credited it with ending looting and vandalism, though he ended it a one day early after he was threatened with a lawsuit from the New York Civil Liberties Union.
Meanwhile pressure is mounting for district attorneys to take broader action to dismiss all protest-related charges—including curfew summons. The Legal Aid Society and other public defenders' offices demanded all protest charges be dropped, as well as those stemming from COVID-19-related social distancing enforcement from months earlier, in a letter sent to district attorneys this week.
"Given their public statements, they should grant amnesty and dismiss them. They [the DAs] have actually volunteered themselves to do so," Jennvine Wong, a staff attorney for the Cop Accountability Project at the Legal Aid Society, told Gothamist/WNYC.
"[M]ost people arrested for violating curfew were issued summonses," the letter reads. "Disturbingly, it seems that none of the charges prosecuted by way of summons—as opposed to desk appearance ticket[s] or criminal arraignment—have been dismissed by your offices."
While prosecutors have the discretion to weigh in on all criminal prosecutions in the county they oversee, all five New York City district attorneys have long-standing policies of not intervening in summons court, state court officials said.
In their letter, public defenders asked district attorney’s to override this policy in order to toss out cases where the person’s sole offense was being out after curfew.
"You each have the authority to prosecute, decline to prosecute, or dismiss all the cases within your jurisdictions, including summons prosecutions," the letter reads. "We ask you to exercise that discretion."
Danny Frost, a spokesperson for Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance Jr., said the DA had not handled summons cases in years, but that his office was reviewing the request. Oren Yaniv, a spokesperson for the Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez, declined to comment on the summonses, even though in an earlier statement, he said curfew violations in criminal court would be tossed. Patrice O’Shaughnessy, a spokeswoman for Bronx District Attorney Darcel Clark said, "we do not prosecute summonses."
Most of the arrests took place in Manhattan, Queens, and the Bronx, according to a report prepared by New York State Attorney General Letitia James. Staten Island District Attorney Michael McMahon’s office said it hadn't received any cases for protest-related arrests.
In early June, Gonzalez had vowed to review protest cases and dismiss those where people were simply practicing their First Amendment rights. He told Gotham Gazette he'd "review every single one of those [protest arrests] to see whether or not these individuals should ever have to come to court or those cases should be declined."
Vance made a similar commitment regarding unlawful assembly and disorderly conduct charges.
Clark reportedly committed to declining to prosecute for unlawful assembly and violating curfew, issuing a summons instead. But the summons is still a criminal charge and doesn't mean the case is dismissed.
Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz's office didn't say how many curfew summons had been issued in the borough, but that Katz is declining to prosecute curfew violations.
To date, as few as 227 cases have been dropped or will be dropped this week, about 10 percent of all the arrests: two in Queens, 10 in Brooklyn, and 225 in Manhattan. The Bronx DA's office declined to clarify how many cases it had declined to prosecute so far.
Brooklyn, Bronx and Manhattan prosecutors said they were still reviewing additional criminal charges, which range from obstructing governmental administration, assaulting a police officer, burglary to criminal mischief among others, according to arrest statistics Gothamist/WNYC obtained from the NYPD.
Wong, of Legal Aid, noted the arrests and summons could have a negative impact on the lives of the protesters for a long time.
“If these cases are still pending, then you're also putting people at a disadvantage in housing. If they're looking for new employment, this can have dire consequences,” Wong said. “All of these different factors [should] go into dismissing these cases in the interest of justice.”
