NEW YORK (1010 WINS) -- Gov. Andrew Cuomo on Thursday accused New York City officials of heightening the backlash over new rules in Brooklyn's COVID-19 hotspots by failing to enforce the state's original executive orders.
Hundreds of ultra-Orthodox demonstrators took to the streets in Borough Park on Wednesday night to protest newly-released state guidelines that temporarily roll back reopenings in areas deemed "high-risk" hotspots.
In a teleconference hosted by Cuomo on Thursday afternoon, a CBS New York reporter described the NYPD's response to the protests as a "Tale of Two Cities" approach to enforcement.
While "Black Lives Matter" protests in New York City over the summer resulted in "heavy police enforcement" and hundreds of arrests, the reporter noted, no one was arrested during the Borough Park protests, though some attendees set street fires and became violent.
Cuomo responded by calling on the NYPD to "enforce the law, [without being] politically selective in the enforcement of the law."
"What's happening there is the rules were never enforced in these communities," the governor said. "Why are they so upset about the current rule when there was a previous rule that was more dramatic? Because the previous rules were never enforced."
"The NYPD is 35,000 people. New York City taxpayers pay them $10 billion a year," he added. "It can't be a situation where, 'I enforce the law unless the communities are upset.'"
The state's new rules, which took effect on Thursday in New York City and will last two weeks, limit religious services to 10 people, shutter schools and prohibit mass gatherings in neighborhoods that fall within state-designated "red zones."
Orthodox Jewish leaders called the mandatory closures "scientifically and constitutionally questionable," and have said the restrictions unfairly target their communities.
Catholic school officials have also raised objections to the rules, citing a lack of cases in their schools. Cuomo on Thursday, however, said he wouldn't make an exception for anyone.
"Now we have the Catholic schools that say, 'Why should we close? We're doing everything right," he said.
"I understand (the virus is) not in your school, but a Catholic school student can walk into the same store as people in the infected community, can be on a bus, a train, et cetera, because the virus spreads," he added. "It's a worse situation now because the rules weren't enforced."
New York state on Thursday reported a 5.8 percent infection rate in New York state's COVID-19 hotspots — a figure that far exceeded the state's infection rate without them, which stood at 1.01 percent, Cuomo said.
The state reported an overall infection rate of 1.26 percent, the governor said, but stressed that that number was "not representative of the state."
"The clusters (represent) six percent of the state population," he said. "The clusters are what we're watching."
The state also reported 10 new COVID-19 deaths: two in Cattaraugus County; one in Cayuga County; one in Chemung County; one in Erie County; one in Brooklyn; one in Manhattan; two in Steuben County; and one in Westchester County.
