NEW YORK (AP) — Police in the New York City suburbs have made the first arrest under a new local law banning face masks, officials announced Tuesday.
Nassau County police said officers responded Sunday evening to reports of a suspicious person on a street near the city line of Levittown and Hicksville, about 30 miles (48 kilometers) east of Manhattan.
They found Wesslin Omar Ramirez Castillo dressed in black and wearing a black balaclava that covered his face except for his eyes.
According to the department, the 18-year-old resident also displayed other suspicious behavior, such as trying to hide a large bulge in his waistband and refusing to follow officers' commands.
Officers said the lump turned out to be a 14-inch knife. Ramirez Castillo was arrested without further incident, police said.
He was arraigned Monday in Westbury Family Court on charges of weapons possession and obstruction of government administration, according to Nassau County District Attorney Anne Donnelly's office.
Police spokesman Lt. Scott Skrynecki said Ramirez Castillo will also face a face mask violation in the coming days.
Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman, a Republican who signed the mask ban earlier this month, said Sunday's arrest shows the rule is working.
“Our police officers were able to use the mask ban legislation and other factors to stop and question an individual who was carrying a weapon with the intent to commit a robbery,” he said in an emailed statement. “By passing this law, law enforcement was given an additional tool to stop this dangerous criminal.”
Keith Ross, a criminal justice professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York City, said police didn't necessarily need the new law to arrest and question Ramirez Castillo, but it helped bolster their justification.
“The law gives police at least reasonable suspicion to stop someone,” the retired New York City police officer explained by phone. “With reasonable suspicion, police can stop someone in New York State if they suspect that they have committed a felony or a criminal offense, and that’s what this new law covers.”
But Scott Banks, chief counsel at the Legal Aid Society of Nassau County, which represents Ramirez Castillo, disputed that idea.
“There is no basis to believe that wearing a face mask was intended to conceal identity or criminal conduct, and if that was the basis for the arrest, I believe there is a basis to conclude that the arrest was unlawful,” he wrote in an email.
Skrynecki declined to comment, saying police and the county will discuss the incident at a news conference Wednesday.
The New York Civil Liberties Union, which has criticized the new law, reiterated 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 disability advocacy group, filed a lawsuit last week, claiming the state’s mask law is unconstitutional and discriminatory against people with disabilities.
The federal class action lawsuit seeks a temporary injunction and preliminary injunction to immediately halt enforcement of the ban.
The Mask Transparency Act was passed by the region's Republican-controlled legislature in response to “anti-Semitic incidents, often committed by people wearing masks” since the start of the war between Israel and Hamas on October 7.
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 conceal their identity in public. It exempts people who wear masks “for health, safety, religious or cultural purposes, or for the peaceful observance of a holiday or similar religious or cultural event for which masks or face coverings are customarily worn.”
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