Sheriff Issues Statement on Governor’s Order

MUSKINGUM COUNTY, Ohio-Governor Mike Dewine issued a statewide order on Tuesday to help combat the spread of COVID-19. 

The specifics of the order are still being revealed to law enforcement, but sheriff Matt Lutz disputes the label of “Curfew”.

“He used the word ‘curfew’, which I kind of wish he wouldn’t have used. I haven’t seen the order yet, but from what we’re getting from them it’s just not a typical curfew. We were on a conference call yesterday at 3:30 with the governor’s office, as well as other sheriffs across the state and chiefs of police, across the state of Ohio, and I had my normal Wednesday meeting with the joint unified command on all this COVID stuff, and this is not going to be a normal curfew.”, Lutz explained to reporters.

Lutz says the order is more of a soft lockdown on businesses compared to the spring’s shutdown. Lutz doesn’t feel that it’s within the sheriff office’s jurisdiction to strictly enforce the mandate.

“We’re not going to be out there making random stops on our citizens to find out what they’re doing. That’s not going to happen. We don’t have the resources to be doing that, we don’t want to be doing that, and we want them to get along with their everyday lives and we’re not going to interfere with that. We’re going to make traffic stops our normal ways for what we would normally make traffic stops for.”

The order goes into effect on Thursday, November 19th and more information can be found on the sheriff’s website.