New York Prisons Will Place Inmates on Lockdown During Solar Eclipse

New York State Corrections Department has issued a lockdown for all inmates on April 8th due to the upcoming total solar eclipse.

The move by New York state corrections authorities has resulted in inmates suing the state.

On Friday, a group of inmates filed a lawsuit in Federal Court that states a lockdown on April 8th during the total solar eclipse “violates inmates’ constitutional rights to practice their faiths.”

The plaintiffs in the suit are six men with various backgrounds, including Baptist, Seventh-Day Adventist and Muslim.

Previously, The Gateway Pundit reported New York state police officials had warned residents to be prepared for slow 911 response times, cellular disruptions, gridlocked traffic, and food demand during the upcoming total solar eclipse.

Inmates in a New York prison have filed a lawsuit after the state’s Department of Corrections announced a lockdown that would prevent them from watching next week’s total solar eclipse. https://t.co/qindpVlKhX pic.twitter.com/ajw0eMvdYC

— ABC News (@ABC) April 2, 2024

Per USA Today:

Inmates at a New York prison who are being prevented from witnessing next week’s total solar eclipse have filed a lawsuit against the state corrections department, claiming that the decision violates their religious freedoms.

The celestial phenomenon, which has not passed over New York since 1925 and will not be seen again in the state until 2079, “is a significant religious event for people of many different faith backgrounds,” according to the complaint, which was filed Friday in federal court in upstate New York.

However, New York corrections officials put a lockdown in place at its facilities for April 8, the day the eclipse will pass over a long stretch of North America, including New York, as the moon blots out the sun. Among them is the Woodbourne Correctional Facility, the prison in Woodbourne where six men of varying religious faiths jointly sued the corrections department over the policy.

The plaintiffs – a Baptist, a Muslim, a Seventh-Day Adventist, two practitioners of Santeria and an atheist – are asking a judge to order the corrections department to immediately rescind the lockdown memo and provide eclipse glasses to all inmates who wish to view the eclipse, as it did when a partial eclipse was visible in 2017 in New York.

North of New York in the Niagara Falls region, Canadian officials have already declared a state of emergency to prepare for the upcoming total solar eclipse on April 8th.

READ:

Niagara Falls Declares State of Emergency to Prepare for Total Solar Eclipse