SHERIFF: Stay-home order is not ‘martial law.’ You won’t go to jail for taking a walk or shopping
As the state clamps down on day-to-day activities to halt the spread of COVID-19, the disease caused by the new coronavirus, Gov. Brian Kemp’s shelter-at-home order has raised its share of questions.
Just what is legal? And what can the cops stop you for?
The governor’s “whereas-,” “therefore-” and “pursuant”-laden order clearly — or perhaps not so clearly — does not mean all travel or going outside or driving is restricted.
Far from it, said Bibb County Sheriff David Davis.
“There’s a wide gap,” he told The Telegraph on Friday, “between what the governor has ordered and martial law.”
Kemp empowered county sheriffs to enforce the shelter-in-place order, authorizing them to “enforce the closure of businesses, establishments, corporations, nonprofit corporations or organizations...” Davis said the order more or less asks for the public’s compliance in avoiding large gatherings and staying home when possible.
“We will enforce the egregious violations, certainly,” Davis said, “but with warnings first.”
Davis said he hopes “people’s common sense” will prevail and that folks will avoid congregating. He said his deputies plan to warn people first and cite, with misdemeanors, only those who insist on defying the order. Deputies won’t stop people to see where they’re driving.
“Typically we are not going to go about stopping everybody that we see,” Davis said. “You have to have some probable cause. Just because this order is in effect, it really doesn’t give us the probable cause to stop every single car. We have to assume that car is going for some essential service unless we see something otherwise.”
He said that officers will “focus our scrutiny” on suspicious activity — hanging around closed businesses after dark, lurking in parking lots.
“As we already do anyway,” Davis said. “In a way this helps us, because the only people who are gonna be out after 10 or 11 o’clock at night are probably the people who are up to no good.”
So in a way the police won’t be enforcing the law much differently.
“Just abide by the law,” Davis said, and you won’t tend to attract suspicion. “We’re hoping that people will use their better nature and common sense.”
This story was originally published April 4, 2020 at 7:00 AM.