Citing Crime Concerns, NYPD Says Store Owners Should Make Customers Remove Masks

After over 2 years of forcing the American people to cover their mouths, the New York Police Department is now telling store owners to deny customers service unless they remove their masks and display their faces in order to help the police combat a massive robbery spree.

NYPD Chief of Department Jeffrey Maddrey claims the widespread use of masks is empowering robbers to thwart police investigations of security footage.

“We’re seeing far too often where people are coming up to our businesses, sometimes with masks, sometimes masks, hoods, and latex gloves, and they’re being allowed, they’re being buzzed in and allowed to enter the store and we have a robbery,” Maddrey explained.

Consequently, Maddrey has requested that store owners start enforcing new rules for their customers.

“We are asking the businesses to make this a condition of entry, that people when they come in, they show their face, they should identify themselves,” said the department chief, according to ABC 7 NY.

Robberies in New York carried out by people wearing masks have been seen quite a bit, especially after the wearing of such articles was normalized and in many cases compelled by American society during the response to COVID-19.

Take for example a video of a robbery posted to Twitter by A News in August of last year.

Bronx bodega owner Francisco Marte, who says that he has been “shot three times,” expressed his opposition to the NYPD’s new guidance.

“We don’t have a weapon to defend ourselves,” noted Marte. “That would be great, everyone comes with their face up so the camera can see, we all can see. But we cannot force them to take off the mask.”

Marte possibly could have been referencing the state’s gun laws, which are considered so strict by some that sheriffs in the state have refused to enforce certain prohibitions because they “unfairly [target] law-abiding citizens.”

As was acknowledged in a press release put out by New York Attorney General Letitia James in June of last year, citizens of the state must be okayed by a “licensing regime” in order to carry a firearm in public.