New York City, New York: This week, officials said that police in the areas of New York City made the first arrest under a new law that makes it illegal to wear a face mask.
Nassau County Police said they found Wesslin Omar Ramirez Castillo on a street near the town line between Levittown and Hicksville, about 30 miles east of Manhattan. He was wearing black clothes and a black ski mask that hid his face except for his eyes.
The resident, who was 18 years old, also did other strange things, like trying to hide a big bulge in his pants that turned out to be a 14-inch knife. Without any further trouble, Castillo was arrested.
According to the office of Nassau County District Attorney Anne Donnelly, he was charged with criminal possession of a weapon and obstructing government operations in Hempstead’s Nassau County District Court.
A spokesman for the police, Lt. Scott Skrynecki, said that Ramirez Castillo will also be booked in the next few days for a misdemeanor violation of the face mask rule.
The Republican who is in charge of Nassau County and signed the mask ban into law earlier this month said the arrest showed that the rule was working.
Keith Ross is a professor of criminal justice at New York City’s John Jay College of Criminal Justice. He said that the new law didn’t make cops have to stop and question Ramirez Castillo, but it did help them make their case.
But Scott Banks, who is the chief attorney at the Legal Aid Society of Nassau County and is defending Ramirez Castillo, said that wasn’t true.
As the New York Civil Liberties Union criticized the new law again, they said that the mask ban is “ripe for selective enforcement by a police department with a history of aggression and discrimination.”
Yesterday, Disability Rights of New York, a group that fights for disabled people, filed a lawsuit against the mask law, saying that it is unfair to disabled people and goes against the Constitution.
When someone in Nassau covers their face in public, it is against the law and can get them up to a year in jail and a $1,000 fine.
It lets people who wear masks go “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.”