The video was captured by Tay Crispyy, a 26-year-old DIY news anchor who runs his own Instagram news channel, @taycrispyy. It shows a scene from "Sunday Funday," a weekly gathering where people watch cars do stunts. In the clip, Crispyy describes what he calls a "very unsanitary" scene, showing people standing closer than six feet apart and not wearing face masks.
Sunday was one of the first warms days in a while, following a spring snowfall earlier in the week.
In another video posted Monday, people give Crispyy the middle finger while he tries to explain social distancing.
Crispyy tells Metro Times that he started doing his own news videos last July "to be his own boss" and because of his uncanny ability to "always at the right place at the right time." He has more than 51,000 followers on Instagram.
He says on Sunday, he was simply trying to catch a bus.
"People not taking this serious is very, very baffling to me," Crispyy tells Metro Times. "I believe they're not taking it serious just because it hasn't hit home yet."
Crispyy says he thinks some people may understand the risks, however — and may be choosing not to stay home.
"People are not about to just sit in the house," he says. "They got one life to live. And you only live once."
On Wednesday, thousands gathered in Lansing for "Operation Gridlock," a protest of Gov. Gretchen Whitmer's stay-at-home order, which right-wing critics say goes to far. The executive order bans large gatherings and shuts "non-essential" businesses through the end of the month. People can be fined up to $1,000 for violating the order.
Originally, "Operation Gridlock" protesters were asked to stay in their cars to not spread the virus. But despite the instructions of the Betsy DeVos-funded Michigan Freedom Fund, which claims it did not organize the protest but merely advertised it, people got out of their cars — some even brandishing guns. Whitmer said she was "disappointed" in the protesters, and that the gathering "may have just created a need to lengthen" the shutdown.
The coronavirus has hit Michigan and Detroit especially hard. Michigan has the third-highest number of coronavirus cases in the nation, following New York and New Jersey. On Sunday, Michigan reported that the state has seen more than 30,000 positive cases and more than 2,000 deaths since the crisis started in March.
In Detroit, more people have been killed by the coronavirus than in two years of homicides combined.
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