'Hope you all get coronavirus': Video shows police surround four men eating pizza
A tense tussle erupted over the weekend when a dozen police officers swarmed on four men breaching social distancing rules by eating pizza together in a car.
Officers arrived at Edgar Street in Condell Park, in Sydney’s west, about 1.45pm on Saturday and issued two men, aged 22 and 26, both from Milperra, with penalty infringement notices for failing to comply with the coronavirus public health order.
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The older of the two men was also fined for offensive language, with the other two men issued warnings.
The heated confrontation was captured on video and later shared to Facebook, and showed two men being detained as several police surrounded them.
“Look how much police they’ve got for a ticket. We were sitting down eating, and the f***ing dogs came for no reason,” the man who is filming can be heard saying.
In another video, a man was heard wishing that the officers would come down with COVID-19.
“I hope you all get the coronavirus, especially you, I hope you snap your neck you little mutt,” he said.
At one point, one of the men appeared to be in handcuffs while seated on the driveway, before being shifted off the ground by a friend and then ordered to sit on a front porch by an officer.
Four police were shown wrestling the man across the driveway before bringing him to the ground on the front lawn of the property.
The men seemed to be under the impression they had been unfairly targeted by the large group of police, shouting expletives at them and arguing they were not in the wrong.
In NSW, breaching social distancing rules carries a maximum penalty of $11,000 or six months in jail, with police permitted to issue $1,000 on-the-spot fines.
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