Who was that masked man?
Good luck with this:
Face masks, once an essential Covid-19 protective measure, are now being worn by criminals to conceal their identities, according to New York police who are urging businesses to unmask customers before letting them in stores.
Masks were never essential. They were required, however.
And it’s not just now that masks are being worn by criminals to conceal their identities. It went on during the COVID years. And of course, there’s a long previous tradition of criminals wearing masks, but pre-COVID such people stood out like the proverbial sore thumbs.
One problem with this remedy is enforcement. Must stores employ bouncers to get rid of masked would-be criminals? And if they are criminals, wouldn’t they perhaps be armed? There are fewer police around in many cities these days, too:
“We’re asking the businesses to make this a condition of entry: That people, when they come in, they should show their face, they should identify themselves,” Maddrey added. “And if they feel like they want to put their mask on after they identify themselves for their safety, by all means, they should do so.”
The NYPD’s appeal to businesses comes after a “masked up” criminal entered a Queens jewelry store and allegedly made off with $1.1 million worth of property after beating the 79-year-old woman who was watching the store.
A 79-year-old woman watching the store? Seems a bit inadequate to me, whether the assailant is masked or unmasked.
The COVID years, the gift that keeps on giving.
NOTE: Of course, masks weren’t just for criminals. Sometimes the good guys wore them:
Of course, masks weren’t just for criminals. Sometimes the good guys wore them:
Don’t forget Zorro, the late 1950s Pueblo de Los Angeles version of the Lone Ranger– only with a sword instead of pistols:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQnle_3KuOE&ab_channel=TeeVeesGreatest
Many years ago I was in my local bank branch wearing a baseball cap and sunglasses while waiting in line. I was asked to remove them so the cameras would get a clearer picture. I counted 14 cameras in a not terribly large room.
TommyJay,
As the joke goes one day wearing a mask in a bank would get you arrested and the next day NOT wearing a mask in a bank would get you arrested.
It wasn’t that long ago (2003) that there was a controversy in Florida as to whether a Muslim woman had to remove her niqab (face veil) to have her photo taken for her driver’s license. The local judge ruled that “hiding one’s face on a form of photo identification defeats the purpose of having the picture taken.” In 2011, there was a string of armed robberies in Philadelphia committed by a black male wearing traditional Muslim face coverings for women: https://www.nbcphiladelphia.com/news/local/bank-robber-dresses-as-muslim-woman-police/1918384/
I still see some mask wearing around here, not much but some. Yeah I thought the same thing when I went into a bank with a Mask on. They had a sign saying not to wear a hat/cap but I always wear a cap when I don’t have a hat one. Just me.
Covid-type masks were an important part of the attire for Antifa rioters in Portland. The masking served them well.
Early in the panic my husband enjoyed going around with a bandana on his face, looking like the Unabomber.
PA Cat, I knew Muslim women in Cairo who would cross the street to avoid someone in a burqa, saying they were dangerous; you couldn’t even be sure the person underneath was a woman.
Kinda ironic, wanting proto-criminals to remove their masks before committing shoplifting crimes. Are the DA’s worried they might release the wrong criminal without bail? Released on their own unrecognizable recognizance.
Kate:
I took some modest enjoyment, during those bleak Covid years, wearing a red bandana over my face and imagining I was part of Butch Cassidy’s “Hole in the Wall Gamg.”
The music to “The Lone Ranger,” “The Ballad of Davey Crockett,” and “Cool Water” are seared into my soul.
Kate said, “Early in the panic my husband enjoyed going around with a bandana on his face, looking like the Unabomber.”
I thought about borrowing a catcher’s mask (the newer type that looks a lot like a hockey goalie’s mask) from the local MiLB team (the Hartford Yard Goats, formerly the New Britain Rock Cats) for shopping trips, just to make the point that the stupid cloth masks we were required to wear during the pandemic were just as ineffective in stopping virus particles.
Then there’s the Lenny Bruce version:
_________________________
Narrator: Here’s a bit. It’s about a good man, a man who was better than Christ and Moses: The Lone Ranger. The Lone Ranger was so good that he never waited for a “Thank You.” He cleaned up the whole town for you and split —
–Lenny Bruce, “Thank You Masked Man (Live)”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sXy_GeL93u0
–Lenny Bruce, “THANK YOU, MASK MAN”
https://www.notbored.org/mask-man.html
_________________________
I think it’s one of Bruce’s best, but Mama dropped me on my head when I was but an infant.
Aggie:
Excellent point.
My fantasy solution for masked robbers and rioters begins with the quick use of a firearm and ends with a wood chipper at the community compost.
Heavily armed and unmasked societies are polite societies.
The funniest response to the mask mandate at the height of the covidiocy was a woman that I saw at the regular weekend open-air market at the Pearl Brewery – a woman in a business suit, wearing a belly-dancer’s diaphanous and spangled veil over her nose and mouth. I giggled, and gave her a thumbs-up. If the covidiocy and mask mandates had gone on much longer, I was considering doing the same.
It was all for naught
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/lockdown-files/
Slightly off topic but not far off. This is a great investigative report on the extreme lengths Santa Clara county undertook to spy on a church that dared defy their totalatarian lockdown orders. Spying, mining cell data and much more.
This is a great piece.
https://davidzweig.substack.com/p/when-a-renegade-church-and-a-zealous
For now, only in the Big Apple:
NYC to Pay George Floyd Rioters MILLIONS, Because Cops Didn’t Wear Face Masks
Other blue cities with like-minded jury pools take note (lookin’ at you, Minneapolis).
MINNEAPOLIS — “Say his name!” protesters chanted late Thursday night, as police officers in riot gear lowered their face masks and gripped their batons, preparing to move toward the crowd. “George Floyd!”
Face shields perhaps? Were they masked under those shields?
A cursory glance at MPD masking during the St Fentanyl uprising shows maybe 10% at most with masks.
“But masks are ineffective” you say. Doesn’t matter. It’s all about the jury pool.