A Michigan sheriff on Monday compared Gov. Gretchen Whitmer's stay-at-home order to mass arrest, telling a rally in Grand Rapids, "It’s basically taking away your free will."
Barry County Sheriff Dar Leaf spoke to a rally of about 350 people protesting the governor's coronavirus quarantine orders, according to Michigan Live.
"What’s the definition of an arrest? It’s basically taking away your free will, your right to move about," Leaf said. "And an unlawful arrest is when you do it unlawfully, so when you are ordered to your home, are you under arrest? Yeah, by definition you are."
Leaf was among about a half-dozen speakers at the Michigan Patriots Rally - Sheriffs Speak Out, though he was the only sheriff to take the microphone.
Whitmer's order has drawn sharp criticism, having banned residents from visiting family and friends and not allowing them to go to second homes. Critics have especially slammed her order for not allowing stores to sell gardening supplies and seeds.
Sheriff Leaf, noting that Monday's event was held at Rosa Parks Circle, brought up Michigan barber Karl Manke, who opened up his shop despite Whitmer's order. He called Manke a "little version of Rosa Parks," asking the crowd to imagine what would have become of the civil rights movement had Parks never sat in the front of the bus.
Leaf said Whitmer "took some wind out of my sails" by announcing earlier in the day that some parts of the state could open up on a limited basis on Friday, but he said the order should have been issued sooner because there were small numbers of cases in those counties despite the higher cases throughout the state as a whole.
Michigan, with almost 52,000 COVID-19 cases and almost 5,000 deaths has the fourth highest death toll for the disease in the country.