Mayor Ras Baraka reminded juveniles and young people around the city that gathering in large groups should not be happening due to guidelines set in place to help "flatten the curve" against the deadly spread of Coronavirus.
Baraka, in a brief Saturday morning press conference, showed concern about youth gathering in two locations in Newark "having fun" amid this worldwide crisis that has caused fatalities to thousands.
"Last night's gathering on Grafton Avenue is not a message that our youth need to send to the world. We all know what happens because it went viral on social media and it's not the behavior we want to exhibit," Mayor Baraka said.
https://youtu.be/fAp50c_hVno
According to the viral video, a group of about 50-75 juveniles to young adults gathered on the Grafton Avenue housing development and played loud music, partied and defied the social distancing policies set forth by New Jersey's Governor Phil Murphy.
When police arrived at the scene, the video showed several individuals become defiant and declined to disperse.
Police were able to break the crowd up without further incident peacefully.
The juvenile responsible for recording the video stood today with Mayor Baraka and apologized for not taking the worldwide pandemic seriously.
State officials said last night incident is not isolated to Newark and has shown young people -menials- around the nation with very little concern of the deadly coronavirus pandemic.
Just this week, over 1,000 college spring break beachgoers who drank and partied on Florida beaches we're ordered to go home while Florida's governor closed all beaches.
"We are young and this doesn't affect us. This is for old people," one of the Flordia spring break beachgoers said.
Many young people have taken to social media to express frustration that members of older generations are still carrying on with their daily activities, such as dining out, playing golf or attending fitness classes despite warnings to practice social distancing and avoid large gatherings to stop the spread of the deadly respiratory disease, which is spread through close contact and for which there is no known vaccine or treatment.
Now, new data out of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have thrust younger adults into an even brighter spotlight: it suggests adults ages 20 to 44 have accounted for nearly 30% of the U.S. COVID-19 cases, and 20% of related hospitalizations.
After adding adults ages 45 to 54, the percentages swelled to nearly 50% and 40%, respectively.