Cops Will Limit Access To Central Park This Weekend, Mayor Says

CENTRAL PARK, NY — New York City will deploy police officers to monitor areas of Central Park to ensure the park does not get too crowded, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced Friday.

Police officers will limit access to Central Park's Sheep Meadow this weekend to prevent overcrowding as weather forecasts predict sunny days with high temperatures in the 80s and 70s, De Blasio said Friday. Limiting access to the park will allow parkgoers to safely spend time outdoors while maintaining social distancing rules, the mayor said.

The NYPD will also be deployed to limit access to Hudson River Park's Pier 45 and 46 in the West Village, where photos of large crowds swarming lawns went viral on social media earlier this month.

"We're going to create a monitoring approach; NYPD officers, civilian ambassadors, they'll be there, they'll be there early. They'll set parameters on how many people should go into these areas and always be providing guidance, be providing free face coverings. We want to just get ahead of the problem by limiting the number of people in these areas that become crowded and if our approach continues to work, we'll apply it to any place else we need to," de Blasio said Friday.

Police officers will be stationed at park entrances and other access points within parks for areas where capacity can be easily monitored, NYPD Comissioner Dermot Shea said this week, as reported by NY1.

"Essentially what we're doing is, we're going to take confined spaces where we've seen some overcrowding in parks where it's logistically feasible to do - think of a fenced-in field - and we're going to control the access point," NYPD Commissioner Dermot Shea said, according to NY1.

New York City is ramping up NYPD presence in the parks when the department's enforcement of social distancing has drawn accusations of excessive force and racism. Data on social distancing enforcement released this week show that 90% of New Yorkers arrested and 80% issued summonses for social distancing violations are people of color.