Virus's Toll on New York Police: 1 in 6 Officers Is Out Sick

With weeks to go before the epidemic is expected to peak, the virus has already strained the Police Department at a time when its 36,000 officers have been asked to step up and help fight it by enforcing emergency rules intended to slow its spread.

The epidemic has also added a new level of risk and anxiety to police work, even as reports of most serious crimes have dropped steeply since the city imposed the new rules. Every arrest or interview now carries the potential for infection, officers say.

“It’s a stressful job at the best of times,” the police commissioner, Dermot F. Shea, said Tuesday in a livestream. “Right now, I don’t think you can imagine a worse point of time.”

Police departments across the country are facing similar challenges. In Detroit, for instance, a fifth of the police force is quarantined, and the chief of police is one of about 40 officers infected. But the magnitude of the crisis for police in New York dwarfs the dozens of cases reported in other big-city police departments and sheriffs offices, like those in Houston and Los Angeles.

On Thursday, 6,498 New York officers called in sick — about 18% of the force — with most of them reporting flulike symptoms. The numbers have been steadily climbing for about three weeks, Shea said. The department’s weekly Compstat meetings, usually devoted to dissecting crime patterns, have been usurped by daily meetings to address the pandemic, he said.

In Manhattan, a third of the officers in two precincts — the 30th in Harlem and the 33rd in Washington Heights — were out sick this week. So were dozens of officers from the 43rd Precinct in the Bronx, one that has some of the city’s highest crime rates.

Police commanders in New York have begun taking pages from disaster plans designed for blackouts, hurricanes and terror attacks, and officials are making revisions by the hour. “There’s no blueprint,” said a sergeant who tested positive for COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus. “It’s a worst-case scenario across the board.”

The plight of the department has reached Washington. The White House, responding to what an official described Thursday as an “urgent SOS” from the Police Department, arranged shipments of 4,000 Tyvek suits for homicide detectives processing suspected COVID-19 deaths and 6,000 gallons of hand sanitizer.

In New York, security officers have been posted outside precincts to screen people entering in an effort to minimize foot traffic, and face masks are being used inside some precinct station houses. Some commanders have moved their daily roll calls outdoors so that officers can spread out. Officers on patrol are carrying N95 masks to pop on if they feel endangered.

Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo has promised to send state police, if necessary, to fill in for sick officers, but Shea has declined the offer for now. He has also said he does not see a need, yet, to ask officers to work 12-hour tours to cover staff shortages.

While paramedics were responding to a record surge in emergency calls, Shea said the calls funneled to police were down. There have also been no parades or large gatherings.

Since the city imposed emergency rules, reports of the seven most serious crimes — including rape, robbery and assault — have dropped to about 187 a day, compared with about 267 a day in the 11 days before the rules went into effect. “Nobody’s on street and that’s really helping us,” Shea has said.

But at the same time, nearly 700 officers have been assigned to enforce Mayor Bill de Blasio’s new social-distancing rules. That has pulled officers from specialized assignments, like film and narcotics, onto patrol.

The nature of police work and the officers’ lack of training in public health puts them at a greater risk of contracting the virus, researchers say. So far, almost 4% of the force has tested positive, and the number increased sevenfold last week.

“When a cop is patrolling, they have to go into homes, they have to go into stores, they experience a whole different world of environments,” said Timothy Akers, an assistant vice president at Morgan State University in Baltimore who studies the emerging field of epidemiological criminology.

Some of the department’s most sensitive work has been slowed by the virus. More than half of the special victims squad in Queens is sick or in quarantine, and precinct domestic violence officers have also curtailed visits to homes with histories of complaints.

Most of the department’s civilian staff are working from home, a move that Shea said was unprecedented. The offices inside Police Headquarters have been reduced to skeletal staff.

As the virus has spread, the availability of masks, gloves, hand sanitizer and disinfectant has become a point of contention between police commanders and the rank and file. Police officials say the department has a sufficient supply of respirator masks, gloves and disinfectants, but it has instructed officers to use the equipment sparingly.

The dearth of supplies has forced the police to stretch what they have. A department memo Wednesday advised officers to hold on to their empty hand sanitizer bottles because it was possible the department would acquire 55-gallon drums to refill them.

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Police union leaders say the department did not distribute enough of the equipment in the early days of the crisis and supplies are still short. For instance, one police official said, the special victims squad in Brooklyn received just 15 masks for 28 detectives, who sometimes must visit hospitals that have coronavirus patients to meet victims of sex crimes and retrieve rape kits.

In recent days, the department has said it distributed more supplies and accepted donations from large charities and local businesses; so have the labor unions. “The problem we are running into is that things aren’t moving fast enough,” said Ed Mullins, the president of the Sergeants Benevolent Association said.

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Some officers said in interviews that they believe a shortage of masks and gloves, especially in the early days of crisis, was partly to blame for the rapid rise in infections in their ranks. They requested anonymity to speak without department approval.

One Brooklyn detective who contracted the virus said in a text message that he had been given only one N95 mask and two disinfectant wipes to use over several days. He said he had no choice but to reuse the mask on a daily basis.

“They are one-time use only mask,” the detective wrote. “I mean, there’s only one mask. So it’s either we reuse or we don’t have anything.” He was later diagnosed with the coronavirus after getting a sore throat, headaches and a dry cough.

Another detective said that, aside from being given meager supplies — including four surgical face masks, four sets of plastic gloves and eight sanitizer wipes to use while on assignment — she was not given much guidance from supervisors.

“It’s so disappointing given the fact that we are revered as the best in the world,” she said.

An officer assigned to the South Bronx, who fears passing the virus to his young children, was more blunt: “It’s a damn shame that a city like New York that is the epicenter of the coronavirus and the financial capital of the world can’t afford a $3 mask.”

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For many officers, the hazards of the pandemic were put into sharp relief last week by the death of Detective Cedric Dixon, a veteran who had not missed a day of work because of illness in seven years.

The 32nd precinct, where Dixon worked, is one of dozens of commands where, union officials said, there were shortages of protective gear.

Monique Dixon, 45, Dixon’s younger sister, said her brother did not complain about the lack of masks and gloves. He was the type to head toward danger without thinking twice, she said, holding back tears.

“People need to understand that this is real,” she said. “Please stay home.”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times .

Virus's Toll on New York Police: 1 in 6 Officers Is Out Sick

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