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Biological warfare
W’burg residents sue for right to not vaccinate
Reports of anti-Semitic incidents on the rise
19
RED LIGHT!
DA will hold off decriminalizing prostitution
until after discussion with plan’s opponents
Photo by Paul Martinka
Five Williamsburg residents are suing NYC Health Commissioner Dr. Oxiris Barbot, front
right, to block her emergency health declaration fining unvaccinated residents of the
Orthodox Jewish enclave.
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Who wants eggs?
A huge line of kids waited for the call to snatch up a baskets full of eggs at Prospect Park’s annual Easter egg hunt
on Saturday. Only the most pugnacious tots managed to net a respectable cache of candy, at the event hosted by lift
purveyor Champion Elevator Corp. In addition to the egg blitz, the company treated kids with face painting, a potato
sack race, and free barbecue.
Photo by Trey Pentecost
By Colin Mixson
Brooklyn Paper
Following his surprise endorsement
for the decriminalization of
prostitution, Brooklyn’s top prosecutor
announced on April 10 that he
will not make any new policy decisions
until after conducting a thorough
study of the issue, in a process
that he said will include meeting
with advocates committed to preventing
a more progressive attitude
towards city sex workers.
“We’re going to hear from a lot
of the other organizations, who are
staunchly opposed to any form of
decriminalization,” District Attorney
Eric Gonzalez told reporters at
last week’s press conference.
Gonzalez announced his plan
to meet with supporters for and
against decriminalizing Brooklyn’s
sex trade after initially endorsing
the policy at an April 4 meeting of
the Lambda Independent Democrats
of Brooklyn, where the prosecutor
stated that he “believes in
Brooklyn DA Eric Gonzalez
said he would stop prosecuting
prostitution last week.
Photo by Colin Mixson
decriminalization” before a crowd
that included Brooklyn State Sen.
Julia Salazar — who is championing
legislative solutions to keep alleged
prostitutes out of jail — along
with her Senate colleague Zellnor
Myrie and former sex workers
turned advocates.
And while the District Attorney
remains undecided on the issue
of decriminalizing prostitution,
Gonzalez said his real focus
will remain on preventing sex trafficking
and finding new ways to
help victims.
“My obligation is to make sure
I’m protecting children who are
being sex trafficked and women
who are being forced into this
trade,” Gonzalez said.
The Brooklyn district attorney’s
office currently operates on a socalled
“soft prosecution” policy regarding
prostitution arrests, where
defendants are given the opportunity
to enroll in social service programs
at arraignment, after which
their cases are typically dismissed
within a few months.
However, the district attorney’s
See DA on page 7
By Colin Mixson
Brooklyn Paper
Five Williamsburg residents are
fighting for the right to not vaccinate
themselves and their children
amid a growing measles outbreak
in Brooklyn, filing suit against the
Department of Health in an effort
to quash an emergency health declaration
that slaps unvaccinated
locals with stiff fines.
The plaintiffs, who filed a complaint
in Brooklyn Supreme Court
on Monday, argued that the roughly
300 known cases of the potentially
fatal illness do not justify the city’s
decision to override their religious
objections to the MMR vaccine,
according to their lawyer.
“We don’t think the so-called
‘outbreak’ has reached a level that
requires the extreme response of
forcing vaccinations,” said Robert
Krakow, a Manhattan attorney
specializing in vaccine injury
lawsuits.
Mayor Bill de Blasio and city
Health Commissioner Dr. Oxiris
Barbot announced on April 9 that
unvaccinated residents of four Williamsburg
zip codes — where some
250 of the total 285 measles cases
had been identified — would be
subject to fines of up to $1,000 in
response to the outbreak, which
has exclusively affected members
of the borough’s Orthodox
Jewish communities.
And while Krakow’s clients
represent a mix of Jewish and
Gentile Williamsburg residents,
they all object to vaccination on
religious grounds and claim the
city’s latest move to stem the virus’
spread constitutes a gross
overreaction, and that less drastic
measures, such as quarantining
infected individuals, should
have been explored first.
“We don’t think the city should
be in the business of forcing people
to vaccinate,” said Krakow. “Quarantine
can be imposed for the people
with active infections.”
The measles virus can be contagious
for weeks before symptoms
show, and the attorney said
he was not aware that several Williamsburg
yeshivas had been cited
by the city for admitting unvaccinated
students amid an ongoing
exclusion order, including one
school where more than 20 students
were infected, according to
the Health Department.
The plaintiffs further allege
that measles can actually be
contracted and spread by the inoculation,
and that vaccinating
“enhances the risk of harm to
the public” through a process
referred to as viral shedding.
“That’s something that happens,
and we don’t know a lot
about it,” Krakow said.
Viral shedding refers to the process
by which viruses spread, but is
a term used by members of the antivaccination
movement to propagate
the myth that vaccines cause
outbreaks, according to a Science-
Based Medicine report.
Measles is a highly infectious,
air-born disease that reaped
an annual national death toll of
between 400 to 500 people before
the MMR vaccine program
kicked off in 1963, according to the
Center for Disease Control .
Barbot did not exceed her authority
by issuing the city declaration
mandating vaccines, which
came after attempts to educate the
community and exclude unvaccinated
kids from Kings County
yeshivas failed to stop the spread
of the disease, according to a
spokesman for the city’s Law
Department.
“The city’s order is within the
Health Commissioner’s authority
to address the very serious
danger presented by this measles
outbreak,” said Nick Paolucci.
“The U.S. Supreme Court has
upheld the right of states and localities
to mandate vaccines to
stop outbreaks.”
By Colin Mixson
Brooklyn Paper
The Metropolitan Transportation
Authority is investigating
claims that a city bus driver attempted
to refuse service to an Orthodox
Jewish man in Williamsburg
early this month, claiming
he would infect her with the measles
virus amid an outbreak of the
potentially fatal illness.
“It’s very, very sad,” said
Rabbi David Niederman, president
of United Jewish Organization.
“Let me tell you, there
were other Orthodox residents on
the bus, and they felt threatened
by it, too.”
Niederman’s group tweeted the
allegations of measles-fueled anti-
Semitism at the MTA last week
on behalf of an unnamed, 40-yearold
Orthodox man, who claims the
bus driver refused to stop for him
at a B57 stop near Franklin and
Flatbush avenues at around 9 a.m.
sometime this month.
The rabbi said the bus driver
did eventually allow the man onto
the bus after the vehicle got caught
in traffic, but that the MTA employee
covered her face with her
sweater, and refused to accept the
man’s transfer, while shouting
“Measles! Go in!”
The incident occurred just days
before Mayor Bill de Blasio announced
a public health emergency
on April 9 in response to
the spread of the measles virus
amid Orthodox Jewish residents
in Williamsburg, where the vast
majority of nearly 300 cases of the
highly infectious disease have been
discovered since October.
And Niederman claimed that the
bigoted bus driver isn’t the only one
who’s used the measles outbreak as
an excuse for anti-Semitism, claiming
Williamsburg Jews are routinely
insulted for an outbreak that his organization
has done everything in
its power to curtail.
“There’s verbal harassment on
the streets,” said the rabbi. “People
shouting, ‘Jews,’ and ‘measles,’
that type of stuff. We’re
working very closely with Department
of Health, and we’ve
been very successful. There’s
been 8k more vaccinations.”
The transit authority is in touch
with Niederman’s organization
regarding their claims, and has
launched an investigation into
their allegedly delinquent driver,
according to MTA Chief External
Affairs Officer Max Young.
“The MTA has absolutely
zero tolerance for discrimination
— we’re taking this issue
very seriously and investigating,”
Young said.
De Blasio chimed in as well,
saying his office has been in contact
with the Transit Authority,
while condemning the act of apparent
anti-Semitism.
“Anti-Semitic discrimination
has no place in our city,” said the
mayor. “We’ve reached out to
the MTA about this report and
will make sure it is thoroughly
investigated.”
By Kevin Duggan
Brooklyn Paper
They need to try harder!
The city must reduce the number
of incarcerated people it plans
to move into borough-based jails
as part of Mayor Bill de Blasio’s
plan to close Rikers Island, attendants
of an April 11 Community
Board 2 meeting said.
Hizzoner’s plan to close down
the beleaguered jail complex, reduce
the incarcerated population
from currently just under 8,000
people to 5,000, and relocate them
to four borough-based jails should
aim for a lower number of inmates,
given the recently-passed
reforms to the justice system in
Albany, according to one state
legislator.
“I urge the city to set a more
ambitious goal of reducing the
average daily jail population to
3,500,” Assemblywoman Jo Anne
Simon (D–Boerum Hill) said at
the meeting, which was held at
Clinton Hill’s Bishop Loughlin
Memorial High School.
State pols passed a sweeping
legislative package on April 1,
which will end cash bail and pretrial
detention for almost all misdemeanor
and nonviolent felony
defendants, among other reforms,
and which will reduce the amount
of people awaiting trial in jail because
they can’t afford bail.
The legislation will not come
into effect until Jan. 1, 2020, but
a recent study by the criminal justice
reform advocacy group the
Center for Court Innovation found
that more than two out five people
detained pretrial in the five boroughs
would have been released
under the new laws.
Simon cited the study and news
reports by The City that the department
as well as the Correctional
Health Services are looking
Atlantic Avenue’s House of Detention faces an uncertain into moving inmates with menfuture
in the mayor’s plan to close Rikers Island.
Photo by Zoe Freilich
Jail plan slammed for high inmate infl ux
See JAIL on page 17
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