NYPD Commissioner Dermot Shea insisted Thursday that the NYPD did not officially sign off on the rabbi’s public funeral that drew thousands to the streets of Williamsburg this week — but prepared for it in the event that such a gathering happened.
The top cop said on “Good Day New York” that the NYPD was notified of the COVID-19-related death of Hasidic Satmar Rabbi Chaim Mertz around 3:30 p.m. Tuesday, a few hours before mourners flooded the streets.
“There is no way a large assemblage like that is supposed to happen,” Shea said on the program. “I think every New Yorker knows that. What we did is plan, knowing that in the event of this happening — which it did — we have a little bit of a history here. Some similar things have happened before — so [it’s] the difference between planning and approving. The best plans we put in place in a short period of time.”
Shea made the comments after it emerged that Moses Weiser, a longtime liaison between the Satmar community and the NYPD, said Wednesday that he “personally spoke” with Capt. Mark Vazquez, commanding officer of the 90th Precinct, which covers Williamsburg, ahead of the gathering.
So the commander sent dozens of cops with barricades and light towers — only to see them overwhelmed by thousands of mourners.
A total of 12 summonses were issued at the gathering for offenses that included violations of social-distancing rules and refusal to disperse.
“The last thing that we want to do is taking enforcement at a religious observance,” Shea said Thursday. “It really is, believe me, the last thing we want to see happen. But at the same time, I think we need to approach this responsibly and people need to be accountable for their own actions.”
Mayor Bill de Blasio took heat for his response to the gathering — a stern tweet calling out “the Jewish community” and warning that such large events “WILL NOT be tolerated so long as we are fighting the Coronavirus.”
Shea said Thursday that the NYPD is not singling out any specific community in its enforcement, saying that it would “go against everything at our core, trying to be fair to all New Yorkers.”