Police in suburban New York City have made the first arrest under a new local law banning face masks, authorities said Tuesday.
Nassau County police said officers responded Sunday night to reports of a suspicious person on a street near the city limits of Levittown and Hicksville, about 30 miles (48 kilometers) east of Manhattan.
They found Wesslin Omar Ramirez Castillo wearing black clothing and a black ski mask that covered his face except for his eyes.
The department said the 18-year-old displayed other suspicious behavior, including trying to hide a large bulge in his waistband and refusing to obey officers’ commands.
Officers said the bump was actually a 14-inch knife. Ramirez Castillo was placed under arrest without further incident, police said.
He was arraigned Monday in Westbury Family Court on charges of criminal possession of a weapon and obstructing governmental administration, according to Nassau County District Attorney Anne Donnelly’s office.
Lt. Scott Skrynecki, a spokesman for the Nassau County Police Department, said Ramirez Castillo will also face a minor violation of the face mask law in the coming days.
Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman, a Republican who signed the mask ban into law earlier this month, said Sunday’s arrest showed the rule was working.
“Our officers were able to use the mask ban law 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. “The passage of this law gave police another tool to stop this dangerous criminal.”
Keith Ross, a criminal justice professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York, said police didn’t necessarily need the new law to stop and question Ramirez Castillo, but it helped strengthen their rationale.
“The law gives police, at a minimum, reasonable suspicion to conduct a stop,” the former New York cop explained by phone. “On reasonable suspicion, police can forcibly arrest a person in New York state if they are suspected of committing a felony or criminal offense, which is what this new law does.”
But Scott Banks, chief attorney for the Legal Aid Society of Nassau County, which represents Ramirez Castillo, disputed that idea.
“There is no reason to believe that wearing a face mask was intended to conceal identity or criminal conduct, and if that was the basis for the stop, I think there is reason to conclude that the stop was unlawful,” he wrote in an email.
Skrynecki declined to comment, adding that police and county officials would 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 group that advocates for people with disabilities, filed a lawsuit last week claiming the mask law is unconstitutional and discriminates against people with disabilities.
The federal class action seeks a temporary restraining order and a preliminary injunction to immediately terminate the ban.
The mask transparency law was approved by the county’s Republican-controlled legislature in response to “anti-Semitic incidents, often perpetrated by masked individuals” since the start of the war between Israel and Hamas on October 7.
The law makes it a misdemeanor offense to wear a mask to conceal one’s identity in public, punishable by up to one year in prison and a $1,000 fine for any person in Nassau. It exempts people who wear a mask “for health, safety, religious or cultural reasons, or to peacefully celebrate a holiday or similar religious or cultural event for which masks or face coverings are customarily worn.”
