NEW YORK — Tuesday, officials said that the first arrests under a new law in the areas of New York City that bans face masks had been made.
Nassau County Police say they were called to a street near the town line between Levittown and Hicksville on Sunday night because someone seemed shady. This street is about 30 miles (48 kilometers) east of Manhattan.
They found Wesslin Omar Ramirez Castillo dressed in black and with a black ski mask over his face except for his eyes.
The 18-year-old resident also did other strange things, like trying to hide a big bulge in his pants and not following the officers’ instructions, according to the police.
The lump turned out to be a 14-inch knife, per the police. Police said Ramirez Castillo was arrested without any further trouble.
A criminal possession of a weapon and obstructing governmental operation charge were brought against him in Westbury Family Court on Monday, according to the office of Nassau County District Attorney Anne Donnelly.
A police spokesman, Lt. Scott Skrynecki, said that Ramirez Castillo will also be charged with a misdemeanor face mask violation in the next few days.
Bruce Blakeman, the Republican who is in charge of Nassau County and signed the mask ban into law earlier this month, said Sunday’s arrest showed that the rule is working.
In an email statement, he said, “Our police officers were able to stop and question a person who was carrying a weapon with the intent to rob using the mask ban law and other factors.” “This law gave the police another way to catch this dangerous criminal.”
Keith Ross, a professor of criminal justice at New York City’s John Jay College of Criminal Justice, said that the new law didn’t make it necessary for police to stop and ask Ramirez Castillo, but it did help them make their case.
“The law gives police at least a good reason to stop someone,” the retired New York City police officer said over the phone. “In New York state, police can stop someone forcibly if they have a good reason to believe they are committing a felony or a penal law misdemeanor. This new law falls under that category.”
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.
“There is no reason to believe that wearing a face mask was meant to hide identity or criminal behavior, and if that was the reason for the stop, I think there is a reason to conclude that the stop was illegal,” he wrote in an email.
Skrynecki wouldn’t say anything, but he did say that police and county officials would talk about what happened at a news conference on Wednesday.
It was said again by the New York Civil Liberties Union, which has been against the new law, 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.
The federal class action case asks for a preliminary injunction and a temporary restraining order to stop the ban from being enforced right away.
The county’s Republican-controlled legislature passed the Mask Transparency Act in response to “antisemitic incidents, often perpetrated by those in masks” since the Israel-Hamas war began on October 7.
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. Masks worn “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” are not subject to this law.
