NY county police make first arrest under new law banning face masks

NEW YORK (AP):

Police in the suburbs of New York City made the first arrest under a new local law banning face masks, officials announced Tuesday.

Nassau County Police say officers on Sunday night responded to reports of a suspicious person on a street near the Levittown and Hicksville town line, about 30 miles (48 kilometres) east of Manhattan.

They found Wesslin Omar Ramirez Castillo wearing black clothing and a black ski mask that covered his face, except for his eyes.

The department said the 18-year-old resident displayed other suspicious behaviour, including attempting to conceal a large bulge in his waistband and refusing to comply with the officers’ commands.

Officers say the bulge turned out to be a 14-inch knife. Ramirez Castillo was placed under arrest without further incident, police said.

He was arraigned Monday in Nassau County District Court in Hempstead on misdemeanour charges of criminal possession of a weapon and obstructing governmental administration, according to Nassau County District Attorney Anne Donnelly’s office.

Lt Scott Skrynecki, a police department spokesperson, said Ramirez Castillo will also be facing a misdemeanour violation of the face mask law in the coming days.

The New York Civil Liberties Union, which has criticised the new law, repeated its warning that the mask ban is “ripe for selective enforcement by a police department with a history of aggression and discrimination.”

The Mask Transparency Act was approved by the county’s Republican-controlled legislature in response to “antisemitic incidents, often perpetrated by those in masks” since the October 7 start of the Israel-Hamas war.

The law makes it a misdemeanour 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.”