That man was David Murdock, a cardiologist from his hometown, Wausau. And, like the hundreds of other people at the rally, Murdock was maskless and did not appear to be practicing social distancing. In one photo, Murdock’s arm was slung around a priest, with the two holding a sign that read “We are an essential service.”
“His picture popped up, and when I saw it, I was furious,” Rusch said. “I thought, this guy is out here hugging people and rubbing elbows without PPE on and he’s actively seeing patients.”
Rusch shared Murdock’s photo on Facebook with an admonition about the doctor who boldly attended a rally amid a global pandemic: Go to his hospital “at your own risk.”
Commenters piled on, and dozens of them contacted Murdock’s hospital. Rusch did, too. By the next afternoon, Murdock, 68, who has been practicing medicine in central and northern Wisconsin for 33 years, had been suspended for a week.
Murdock became one of the most public casualties of a growing crowd of social distancing vigilantes, Americans frustrated by fellow citizens violating government orders to wear masks, close nonessential businesses and refrain from gathering in groups.
Largely confined to their homes and worried about the spread of the coronavirus and its risks to their health or that of loved ones, they make up a segment of the United States that has turned informant. These watchdogs call the police, public health authorities and the employers of people they believe are violating social-distancing or stay-at-home orders.
Across the country, these complaints have led to shutdowns of dog groomers and massage parlors as well as citations and police scoldings to restaurant and bar owners whose patrons are lingering too close to one another.
The citizen action comes into direct conflict with new and mounting calls for the economy to reopen, a dispute that played out that day last month at the Wisconsin rally, with consequences for Murdock’s career. He said in an interview that he had taken vacation time after his suspension and was evaluating whether to return to his hospital.
But such reporting also has occurred in more local ways, with neighborhood websites that once served as bulletin boards for lost cats or plumber recommendations now becoming social distancing complaint boxes.
“Four teenage girls with lacrosse sticks and white hoodies just walked past our place,” read a post on a neighborhood blog in one suburban Boston community. “Parents, you need to do better.”
Some people are resorting to anonymous acts of public shaming. The tone is nasty at times.
In Manhattan’s East Village, profanity-laden posters have been tacked to telephone poles chastising people for not wearing face masks. In Long Beach, Washington, a popular weekend getaway for Seattleites that had been closed, a flyer left on car windshields said, “Your vacation is not worth our lives.” On Twitter, the hashtag #FloridaMorons was used to shame citizens by posting photos of crowded beaches after they recently reopened.
In Wisconsin, after a local TV news outlet published a story saying that Murdock had been suspended, people cheered in messages on a private Facebook group backing stay-at-home orders.
“YES!!!!! YOU DID IT EVERYONE!!!! CONGRATULATIONS!!!!” one commenter posted.
As President Donald Trump and many Republican governors aggressively push to reopen businesses and some Democratic officials call for continued restraint, the actions are sometimes becoming politicized.
Some liberals said they thought that calling out violators was a civic duty and a matter of public health. But Vicki McKenna, a conservative talk radio host in Wisconsin who has promoted rallies resisting the state’s shutdown orders, likened the outing of social distancing offenders to the actions of informants in a totalitarian state.
“There’s a creepy Orwellian sensibility people have,” she said.
Murdock, who has become a minor celebrity in Wisconsin’s conservative political world and who wrote a 2,127-word essay about his experience, said he had no hard feelings toward his hospital supervisors. But he found himself surprised by the vitriol he faced — someone left a bag of feces on the front steps of his home, prompting extra police patrols of his street.
“It’s just unfortunate,” he said. “We can’t even have a civil discussion anymore.”
In some cities and counties, vigilantism has been encouraged by municipalities that have set up special phone numbers, apps or online forms to report violations. Some officials have faced backlash for doing so.
The Health Department in Dane County, Wisconsin, which includes the capital and surrounding areas, took down its website for anonymously reporting social distancing violations after about a week. The volume of complaints had become too large to handle.
New York City’s online reporting system that allowed users to text photos to officials of anyone caught breaking social distancing rules was temporarily shut down after being inundated with obscene images and complaints that it encouraged an authoritarianlike system of snitching.
But many people who have reported offenders say they see their actions as a matter of life or death.
Delaney Kalea was driving her mother to pick up medicine in Prattville, Alabama, on a recent evening when she spotted a group of teenagers outside a bowling alley, “giving each other piggyback rides, dancing, playing football,” she said.
“I decided to make the responsible decision as we were driving off to call the cops,” she said.
Kalea, a makeup artist who lost all her work because of the pandemic, has diabetes and her brother and mother have compromised immune systems. She and her family leave home only for grocery and medicine runs and the occasional pass through a drive-thru restaurant.
“People who think they’re completely untouchable to this virus are the reason so many people are losing their lives,” she said. “My blood boils almost every day when I think about this. Where is the human decency?”
Officials fielding complaints about social distancing said that while citizens seemed well-intentioned, often they are misinformed about the patchwork of regulations guiding each municipality.
The police in Laredo, Texas, expect an uptick in calls from confused citizens reporting what they think are violations of the state’s new, complex directives from the governor that allow, among other things, malls to open up shops — but not food courts, play areas or interactive displays. Rural restaurants can open dining rooms at no more than 50% capacity while urban restaurants could have no more than 25% capacity.
Tips in mid-April led police to crack down on a nail salon and an eyelash services business, arresting the operators of each business after an undercover officer was able to book services with them. Each was charged with violating an emergency plan and could face jail time as well as a $2,000 fine.
Public health enforcement officials in Salt Lake County in Utah have closed tattoo parlors, salons and massage parlors in recent days after fielding the more than 500 calls and online submissions complaining about violations of orders in place there, said Ron Lund, the county health department enforcement coordinator.
Some of the calls have come from business owners angry that competitors do not seem to be abiding by new shutdown rules, he said. Others have come from people who misunderstand the orders about which businesses are allowed to operate. One call came from a woman upset that a hardware store was still open.
“She was very uptight because one of her friends works at this hardware store and she thought it should be closed,” Lund said, adding that he explained the store had the right to be open if it offered hand sanitizer stations, cleaned all surfaces regularly and followed other rules. “She was truly driven by her concern for a friend who was working at a place with a high volume of customers.”
Nadine Campbell was worried about her community in Bridgehampton, New York, one afternoon in March when she drove to check out the beach not far from her home and found cars lining the road.
“People were milling around,” she said. “It was really upsetting.”
She posted a photo of the cars on Facebook, setting off an argument among dozens of commenters about whether people had the right to be on the beach — and whether Campbell should have posted the photo at all.
Campbell was quick to point out that she did not get out of her car, and that she did not call the police.
“I don’t want them to close the beach,” she said, adding that people have recently become much better about keeping their distance. “It’s our only salvation.”
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