Law Enforcement: Crime Rising Due to Widespread Facemask Usage
By Headline Wealth May 17, 2020
(Liberty Headlines) The way the FBI tells it, William Rosario Lopez put on a surgical mask and walked into the Connecticut convenience store looking to the world like a typical pandemic-era shopper as he picked up plastic wrap, fruit snacks and a few other items.
Then, when the only other customer left, he went to the counter, pulled out a small pistol, pointed it at the clerk and demanded that he open the cash register.
The scene, the FBI contends in a court document, was repeated by Lopez in four other gas station stores over eight days before his April 9 arrest.
It underscores a troubling new reality for law enforcement: Masks that have made criminals stand apart long before bandanna-wearing robbers knocked over stagecoaches in the Old West and ski-masked bandits held up banks now allow them to blend in like concerned accountants, nurses and store clerks trying to avoid a deadly virus..
“Criminals, they’re smart and this is a perfect opportunity for them to conceal themselves and blend right in,” said Richard Bell, police chief in the tiny Pennsylvania community of Frackville.
He said he knows of seven recent armed robberies in the region where every suspect wore a mask.
Across the United States, masks have become more and more prevalent, first as a voluntary precaution and then as a requirement imposed by governmental agencies and businesses.
And people with masks — as well as latex gloves — have found their way into more and more crime reports.
Just how many criminals are taking advantage of the pandemic to commit crimes is impossible to estimate, but law enforcement officials have no doubt the numbers are climbing.
Reports are starting to pop up across the United States and in other parts of the world of crimes pulled off in no small part because so many of us are now wearing masks.
In March, two men walked into Aqueduct Racetrack in New York wearing the same kind of surgical masks as many racing fans there and, at gunpoint, robbed three workers of a quarter-million dollars they were moving from gaming machines to a safe.
Other robberies involving suspects wearing surgical masks have occurred in North Carolina, and Washington, D.C, and elsewhere in recent weeks.
The problem isn’t limited to robberies. In the troubled Cook County Jail in Chicago, the virus has led to at least nine deaths and sickened hundreds of inmates and correctional officers.
Staffers must wear masks and inmates are issued a new one every day — a policy that helped one inmate escape on May 2.
Jahquez Scott, jailed on a gun charge and for violating his bond in a drug case, has tattoos of a small heart on one cheek and what looks like a blood-dripping scar on the other.
But when he wore a mask, he posed as Quintin Henderson — who doesn’t have tattoos on his face and was scheduled to be released, authorities said.
Scott made it out, though he was captured a week later.
In addition to rare jailbreaks, the prevalence of masks in society has created other problems for law enforcement.
Before life in a pandemic, masked marauders had to free their faces immediately after leaving a bank or store to avoid suspicion once in the general public.
Poster Comment:
When I worked for State of Illinois I was driving a tractor on a cold day. I had a bandana over my face. I stopped a White Hen Pantry for a hot cup of coffee.
This girl came out of the store and said to me, "You look like you are ready to rob a bank."
I said, "Not really. But I wouldn't mind stealing a kiss."
It didn't get me anywhere. :-/
#1: Cynicom To: BTP Holdings (#0)
Possibly WHERE and ETHNICITY has something to do with it???
Cynicom posted on 2020-05-17 15:47:12 Reply Private Reply
#2: hondo68 To: BTP Holdings (#0)
hondo68 posted on 2020-05-17 15:50:15 Reply Private Reply
#3: noone222 To: BTP Holdings (#0)
Can't let a good crisis go to waste !
noone222 posted on 2020-05-17 17:40:08 Reply Private Reply
#4: noone222 To: BTP Holdings (#0)
That was funny !
noone222 posted on 2020-05-17 18:02:18 Reply Private Reply
#5: Esso To: BTP Holdings, 4um (#0)
It most likely would nowadays. Jail, PeeCee classes, fines.
Hell, a lot of my interaction with folks back in-the-day is now a felony. A few of them probably a capital crime.
We used to laugh and have fun, no one was "threatened."
Esso posted on 2020-05-17 18:04:34 Reply Private Reply
#6: Screen Name To: hondo68 (#2)
Screen Name posted on 2020-05-17 18:05:20 Reply Private Reply
#7: Esso To: Cynicom, 4um (#1)
Ya think?
You forgot morals, although your first two parameters encompass that, either positive or negative.
Esso posted on 2020-05-17 18:22:44 Reply Private Reply
#8: BTP Holdings To: Esso (#5)
No doubt about that. Hell, even my enemies respected me. ;)
BTP Holdings posted on 2020-05-17 20:51:27 Reply Private Reply
#9: BTP Holdings To: noone222 (#3)
No doubt about that.
And he was lucky he was not in a Carry Concealed w/o a permit state like several of them are. He would have been stopped cold like the guy that tried to rob a convenience store in Kansas a few years back.
Or the two guys that tried to rob a steak house in one state and one of the customers, who was armed and afraid for his wife, pulled his pistol and shot both of them. ;)
BTP Holdings posted on 2020-05-17 21:05:09 Reply Private Reply
#10: ghostdogtxn To: BTP Holdings (#0)
ghostdogtxn posted on 2020-05-18 12:09:53 Reply Private Reply
#11: BTP Holdings To: ghostdogtxn (#10)
James R. Thompson was U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois. He cleaned up much of the corruption in the Chicago P.D.
He was Governor of Illinois for two terms. I went to the party he threw at the Governor's mansion after his 2nd election.
When the Governor and his wife retired into their residence, that was the cue the party was over.
I worked for the Republican Committeeman in Chicago getting petitions signed and working as a poll watcher and giving people rides to the polls. Even did some Judge of Election for him.
One day I was walking past his office and he waved me inside. He asked if I was working. I told him I was not. He said, "I will get you a job." He told me to go and get my license to drive a truck.
There was a place nearby I could rent a truck for $50 for the day so I could take the road test. I did that the same day as the written test. This was when truck driver licenses were Class D.
After I got the license I went to State of Illinois building in downtown Chicago and took the test for Highway Maintainer.
There were a lot of black guys there taking it and several were scratching their heads. It was a common sense test.
I was the 3rd or 4th to finish. I got an "A" on the test.
I received my letter of appointment about a month later.
I reported to Northbrook yard with the letter and gave it to the Lead, Lead worker. He read it and said, "We haven't had a Probation here in three years."
My first evaluation after a year was "Exceeds Expectations".
After that it was all downhill with back injuries and other things that threw a monkey wrench in the works.
One time after a back injury, the State wanted me to go see their doctor. I was getting chiropractic treatments.
The doctor poked at my neck and said, "You don't need no more treatments. Take hot showers." When I walked outside in the cold air I got a muscle spasm.
My lawyer said, "That guy wouldn't know a muscle spasm if it happened right in front of him." ROTFLOL
BTP Holdings posted on 2020-05-18 17:58:35 Reply Private Reply