NEW YORK CITY, New York: Officials announced this week that police in the suburbs of New York City made the first arrest under a new local law banning face masks.
Responded to reports of a suspicious person on a street near the Levittown and Hicksville town line, about 30 miles east of Manhattan, Nassau County Police said officers found Wesslin Omar Ramirez Castillo wearing black clothing and a black ski mask that covered his face, except for his eyes.
The 18-year-old resident displayed other suspicious behavior, including attempting to conceal a large bulge in his waistband that turned out to be a 14-inch knife. Castillo was placed under arrest without further incident.
He was arraigned in Nassau County District Court in Hempstead on misdemeanor charges of criminal possession of a weapon and obstructing governmental administration, according to Nassau County District Attorney Anne Donnelly’s office.
Police department spokesperson Lt. Scott Skrynecki said Ramirez Castillo will also be booked for a misdemeanor violation of the face mask law in the coming days.
Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman, a Republican who signed the mask ban into law earlier this month, said the arrest showed the rule was working.
Keith Ross, a criminal justice professor at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York City, said police did not necessarily need the new law to stop and question Ramirez Castillo, but it helped bolster their justification.
But Scott Banks, attorney-in chief at the Legal Aid Society of Nassau County, which is representing Ramirez Castillo, challenged that notion.
Criticizing the new law, the New York Civil Liberties Union repeated its warning that the mask ban is “ripe for selective enforcement by a police department with a history of aggression and discrimination.”
Disability Rights of New York, a group that advocates for people with disabilities, filed a legal challenge last week arguing that the mask law is unconstitutional and discriminates against people with disabilities.
The law makes it a misdemeanor punishable by up to a year in jail and a $1,000 fine for anyone in Nassau to wear a face covering to hide their identity in public. It exempts people who wear masks “for health, safety, religious or cultural purposes, or for the peaceful celebration of a holiday or similar religious or cultural event for which masks or facial coverings are customarily worn.”
