Man Is First to Be Charged in New York with Wearing a Mask in Public
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
It sounds like NY state's laws on knives are broad and vague. While the law pays specific attention to a few particular kinds of knives (like switchblades) a 3-inch blade that doesn't meet any specific criteria can be judged an illegal "dangerous knife" if the owner says it's necessary for protection, even if it was never used or even brandished as a weapon. https://www.akti.org/state-knife-laws/new-york/
We're in this weird world where you can carry a gun around and it's considered your right to do so, and but carrying a pocketknife or a leatherman might be a crime. You can wear a t-shirt with a hate-speech slogan, and you can wear kkk robes, but the minute you put on the hood that obscures your face, or god forbid a ski-mask, that's when you've apparently crossed a line. How did we get here?
By someone always pushing the current boundaries as far as they’ll go.
If I walked down the street in the middle of the day, 3o years ago, with a ski mask on, in August - the police are going to want to ask me what might be going on.
The police flashing this statement like an advertisement for the mask law is a little gross to me. My civil liberties Spidey-sense goes off.
Well... it's New York, so it's unreasonably difficult to carry a firearm (at least, relative to basically every other US state).
That said, there are many states where you can carry a handgun without a permit, but certain kinds of knives are illegal.
> but the minute you put on the hood that obscures your face, or god forbid a ski-mask, that's when you've apparently crossed a line. How did we get here?
Hoods have been used at least since the mid-19th Century as a means of concealing identity while committing crimes. Aside from the KKK, they were also used by groups like the Baldknobbers: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bald_Knobbers
Anti-mask laws were historically a response to this sort of thing.
It looks like outside of NYC, no permit or license or registration is required to carry a rifle or shotgun in the state of New York. The handgun "pistol license" requirements have recently been revised after the previous version were slapped down by the courts -- license applicants can no longer be required to provide a "proper cause" for why you need a permit. So you can walk down the same block this guy did carrying a shotgun, but not a knife.
https://www.nraila.org/gun-laws/state-gun-laws/new-york/ https://www.timesunion.com/capitol/article/supreme-court-ord...
> The circumstances in the Richards case were that the defendant was a casual street vendor seeking to interest a buyer to purchase a Sponge Bob balloon. His persistence led to a police intervention wherein a knife with a 3-inch blade was discovered in his back pocket. The description of the knife did not place it in either category of knives restricted in New York. He explained the purpose for his possession of the knife:
>> That’s for my protection. I need it because of drug dealers. I make $500 a week and drug dealers are out to get me.
> The defendant did not display or brandish the knife, which had remained in his pocket. He was charged with criminal possession under § 265.01 and with disorderly conduct. The court, guided by the reasoning of the case of Matter of Jamie D, observed that a dangerous knife is one that may be used as a weapon, and since the defendant stated that it was for his protection, his purpose made it a weapon, and therefore a dangerous knife.
I.e. carrying a small blade becomes illegal, even if never used as a weapon, or displayed in threat, if the person carrying it mentions defense as a reason for having it. IIUC, there's no established lower-bound on what kind of knife can be considered "dangerous" on these grounds -- if I carry a tiny keychain pocket knife and say that it is for protection, I can be judged to have an illegal "dangerous knife." That seems pretty silly.
> The man arrested on Sunday, Wesslin Omar Ramirez Castillo, 18, the first to face charges under a mask ban passed this month in Nassau County, N.Y., was not engaged in protest. He was walking down Spindle Road, a residential street of tidy lawns and single-family homes in Hicksville, wearing dark clothes and a ski mask in August, the county police said in a statement.
Emphasis mine.
Unrelated, did the NYTimes do something to their website to break copy and paste? It doesn’t work, you can just take a screenshot and copy the text from that, but seriously?
I do not want a Muslim woman to be arrested for wearing a burqa.
Anybody know anything about this law? Does it explicitly not cover women wearing burqas? Or are we just implicitly expecting "reasonableness" in how it's applied? (Or are we not even expecting reasonableness, and we all know it's going to be used against Muslim women soon enough?)
I suppose if the masker is masking as a fashion statement, or to carry a machete, that'd be bad. But if masking is a religious thing it'd be OK.
> The push to ban masks in some public settings began in June after some pro-Palestinian demonstrators covered their faces during protests.
... and often at those protests, people do wear KN95 and similar masks. In those contexts (dense crowds of people shouting) on its face wearing a mask for health-related reasons does not seem outlandish. And some organizers, specifically trying to make events accessible to people with elevated risks, have advocated masking so they can have more people participate. So while this particular person was wearing a ski-mask, I think it's disingenuous on your part to pretend that mask-bans aren't related to health-related masking.
> Wesslin Omar Ramirez Castillo was frisked and charged with knife possession after the police stopped him for wearing a ski mask.
Like, you didn't even need to read the article to make that clear. Reading the first line gives you even more clarity.
> A man on Long Island has been arrested and charged with possessing a knife and wearing a face mask in public, a milestone moment in the debate over whether to criminalize masks in New York State.