Police Chief of the Hoboken Police Department issued a letter to all residents on Sunday morning after “chaotic” shifts Saturday night in which officers in the department responded to 114 calls to service in a six-hour period.

According to Ferrante, they included fights, disputes, people spitting in each other’s faces, emotionally disturbed persons, disorderly juveniles fighting, reports of shots fired (unfounded), pedestrians struck by auto, reckless driving, and more.

He also noted that there was a fight that started in a bar where a 30-year-old man from North Bergen was knocked unconscious and seriously injured.

“It took over 30 minutes for an ambulance to respond due to all the ambulances in the region being tied up on medical calls,” said Ferrante. “It was not the bar fight which brought our OEM Coordinator and Mayor to impose stricter regulations and a curfew. It was the totality of the circumstances and the fact that we have a worldwide pandemic, a national emergency and a state of emergency all occurring, and we need to take action to save lives and prevent further contact from activities that will spread the Coronavirus.”

Last night, Mayor Ravi Bhalla announced a new 10 p.m. curfew would be in effect starting Monday; all establishments that serve food will no longer be open to the public, and instead available through take out and delivery; and all bars would be closed starting at 11 a.m. Sunday, March 15.

Ferrante said he “100 percent” supports these new regulations, noting that they “have been discussed and well thought out and debated.”

It could get worse

He added that every medical expert has informed the public that the situation gets worse if “we don’t take measures to protect each other,” warning that “we can end up with situations like Wuhan, China, and Milan, Italy, where tens of thousands were infected, and hundreds died daily. Northern Italy had 3,500 new cases yesterday and 175 deaths … yesterday. They did not shut down bars, restaurants and plazas and people continued to socialize. Now they are playing from behind.”

He said on Saturday night, people “poured into our bars and restaurants like this was an oasis, and Hoboken was isolated from this pandemic.”

“This was reckless by all those involved,” Ferrante said. “Our numbers are going to increase exponentially, and we need to take all necessary temporary steps, to mitigate any more numbers of cases and try to prevent death. That word is not an exaggeration, it’s a sad fact of what this virus is bringing to many areas of the world and we need to listen to the medical experts who are trying to tell us all that the only way to attack this virus is by not giving it a chance to spread.”

He said one of the reasons he supports the curfew is because first responders and medical professionals need a few hours to take a breath and get a few hours of rest.

“We are not robots,” Ferrante said. “We can only go 24/7 for so long and need to persevere for more weeks to come. We have not reached our peak of this virus … We just can’t have congregations of people coming together at night like it is Spring Break. We need to protect some people from themselves.”

He said police officers will be “diplomatic” with the curfew, noting that it is not about arrests and that it is not to stop an individual from walking their dog it is to “prevent those who are careless and not taking this seriously, coming to or leaving the city to go socialize in groups, which is putting everyone at risk. The world, not just Hoboken, needs to take a couple of weeks break, to let our public safety and medical professionals beat this pandemic.”

He recalled 2012 when Hurricane Sandy hit Hoboken and said he needed to “remind everyone that the coming together of all political sides helped contribute to a miraculous fact that we did not have one death in our city! We need to do the same now. If you are reading this, and you took an oath for your position, go back and read or recall your oath. Mine is on my office wall. Whether you are a police officer, fire fighter, elected official, government leader or any other position where you took an oath, we are all obliged to live up to that oath for the health and welfare of every one of our residents. I call on everyone to please put their political differences aside and come together to work together to save lives. There is more than enough time before the next election to go back to politicking, and I say this to all sides! The past 4 years has seen our nation, state, county and city, fall into political extreme divisiveness. There is no place for moderates or centrists. Please put your extreme views aside, just for a short period, because COVID-19 didn’t declare itself a Democrat or Republican.”

He urged everyone to come together, stay safe, be alert, and watch out for one another.