Gee, who saw this coming?
New York City Mayor Eric Adams saw the shellacking Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot took in her reelection attempt. I’m not shocked he’s jumping to reduce crime in NYC.
In an interview with 1010 WINS Radio, Adams asked New Yorkers to drop their mask when entering a business to prevent crime.
The change came after a person in a hazmat suit and mask killed a 67-year-old Manhattan deli employee over the weekend. The same masked criminal “robbed a 42-year-old worker at the YaYa Deli & Grill at gunpoint and swiped $1,000 worth of cash and merchandise.” Police believe this man has gone on a 10-day crime spree.
Businesses have cameras. People with common sense knew it would be hard to identify anyone going in and out of a store with a mask.
Officials now realize the masks are hindering the police from doing their job.
“So we are asking the partnership, we will do our job of apprehending these guilty people, we’ll do our job seeking them out, but to have our stores make a clear indicator that you’re not allowed to wear a mask coming in,” explained Adams. “Once you’re inside the store, you can put the mask on.”
Adams said if a patron refuses to drop his or her mask, then the employees know who to watch.
“So if someone came into my store and I tell them please take off your mask as you come in and they are unwilling to do so, now I’m a little concerned,” said Adams. “I’m going to be operating differently. That’s all we are trying to do, empower the store owners, the storekeepers so they can play a role that we are going to do as police officers.”
NYPD Chief of Department Jeffrey Maddrey said the same thing on February 28 after the murder of the deli employee:
“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 said.Before the COVID pandemic, most businesses wouldn’t allow people inside with covered faces, Maddrey said. It’s since become a way of life.“We need our businesses to be proactive and do their due diligence,” Maddrey said. “We need to make sure people are identifying themselves.”
Here’s the transcript of the interview about the masks:
[Dan] Mannarino: And everything takes time for sure. But there is an area of concern that we’re hearing from local shop owners, especially some of these illegal cannabis shops that we’re seeing an increase in shoplifting and crimes within stores. So you have made some comments, Mr. Mayor, about telling folks to take off their… It’s so funny, used to tell people to put their masks on to get into a store and have people patrol that. Now you’re telling people to take their masks off when entering a store. How are you going to ensure that that actually happens to capture somebody on a camera? Who is going to be monitoring that? And what if they don’t?Mayor Adams: Well, believe it or not, many of our stores, they have camera systems, and we have an extremely elaborate camera system connected to the New York City Police Department with their own camera system. Let’s be clear, some of these characters going into stores that are wearing their mask, they’re not doing it because they’re afraid of the pandemic, they’re doing it because they’re afraid of the police. We need to stop allowing them to exploit the safety of the pandemic by wearing masks, committing crimes. You saw what happened over the weekend when an innocent store owner was shot and killed. The person had a hazmat suit on and a mask. He wasn’t trying to protect himself from the pandemic.So we are asking the partnership, we will do our job of apprehending these guilty people, we’ll do our job seeking them out, but to have our stores make a clear indicator that you’re not allowed to wear a mask coming in. Once you’re inside the store, you can put the mask on.Mannarino: Yeah. I just have a quick question on that because the same question I had in the beginning of the pandemic of who monitors putting a mask on when going into a store, who is to monitor if they go in with it on now with taking it off?Mayor Adams: That’s a great question, Dan. Here’s what happens, if you tell someone that you can’t wear your mask coming in the store and they do it anyway, you know what that does? That allows you to say, let me look at what’s about to happen here. Because if someone is violating the basic rules, they may be there to violate a substantial rule as to commit a crime. Right now you are unclear of who’s coming in. So if someone came into my store and I tell them please take off your mask as you come in and they are unwilling to do so, now I’m a little concerned. I’m going to be operating differently. That’s all we are trying to do, empower the store owners, the storekeepers so they can play a role that we are going to do as police officers.
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