New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio today announced police will no longer require people to wear masks in public, unless the absence of a mask presents a “serious danger.”
The decision is part of a “reset” of the NYPD’s enforcement of emergency rules during the pandemic, following a number of controversial encounters between officers and members of the public, some of them caught on video. The most recent was a confrontation between officers and a woman in a subway station, over whether she was wearing her mask properly...
“The NYPD shouldn’t be thrown at this particular pandemic — at this health problem,” says David Galarza, a volunteer with a police watchdog group called the Justice Committee. “It only leads to more criminalization and violence against our people, people of color.”
