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Essential Worker Jailed for a Week for Violating NYC Curfew: Report

Devaughnta Williams was reportedly carrying papers permitting him to be out past curfew when the NYPD arrested him for violating curfew.

New York City Police arrested and jailed a janitor for violating curfew and jailed him for a week despite his being an essential worker who was exempt from the order to stay inside, Gothamist reports. The NYPD collared more than 250 people for curfew violations and other offenses at a June 4 Black Lives Matter protest in the Bronx, among them Devaughnta Williams, a 27-year-old janitor who stopped to demonstrate while en route from work to his grandmother’s house. He was planning to rest for a few hours before a graveyard shift at Family Dollar. As an essential worker, Williams carried papers permitting him to travel after the 8 p.m. curfew. Police reportedly ignored them, and he has been jail for a week, at first charged with multiple parole violations and failing to abide by the mayoral curfew order, though the warrants have been vacated. He was released from prison after nine years in March and holds three jobs to support two children. “It’s stressful to be back here, especially when I know I was doing everything correctly. I’m a black man with dreads so automatically I’m pointed out as a criminal,” he said to Gothamist. The Department of Corrections and Community Supervision told Gothamist it expected Williams to be released Thursday, but he was not.