East Central Reporter

Douglas County Sheriff Joshua Blackwell is refusing to enforce Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker's extended stay-at-home order.

The extension to Illinois' stay-at-home order brought along modifications to the order, such as every Illinois residents being required to wear a personal protective face mask in public, according to My Stateline. But Blackwell disagrees with these new guidelines. 

“If he [Pritzker] wants to come out with the guidelines, that’s great. But as far as a law enforcement standpoint, we’re not going to enforce it. I’m especially not going to make my employees wear masks," Blackwell told My Stateline. "They’ve all been offered masks and if they want to wear them they can, but I’m not going to mandate it unless they are dealing with someone who specifically has COVID-19.”

Blackwell also told My Stateline that he won't be enforcing the governor's order because not many people in Douglas County have caught the coronavirus.  

As of May 25, Illinois reported 110,304 confirmed cases of the coronavirus, including 4,856 deaths. Douglas County has 27 confirmed cases of COVID-19.

“It’s a national pandemic but if you look at Douglas County we have [27] residents with COVID which is [.0014%] of our population” Blackwell said. 

He also said enforcing this order isn't the responsibility of law enforcement.  

“There’s a difference between public safety and public health," the sheriff said. "Again, this is a public health emergency not a law enforcement emergency/" 

Pritzker responded to Blackwell not enforcing the order and said he feels bad for the people in Douglas County. 

“I feel badly for the people in that county that they have somebody who doesn’t recognize that this is a worldwide and very virulent virus that is among us," Pritzker said in a briefing. "It’s not going away and we’ll have to follow the rules in order to get through this, keep people alive, and be able to reopen our economy."