There seems to be a people’s consensus against COVID lockdowns and mask mandates that is much broader than many believe. Yet while some of us snicker at extreme mask mandates in places where very few obey them, there’s a real potential for danger when self-appointed vigilantes think they have a right to enforce mandates that may or may not actually exist. It’s also no laughing matter when people actually get in real legal trouble for violating these previously unconscionable orders.
A commenter on Reddit reported being assaulted by a couple at a highway rest area for not wearing a mask. A woman in Vancouver said she was assaulted by a man in the elevator of her building for not wearing one. Something similar happened in Hamilton, Ontario, but the building owner responded by placing signs everywhere instructing people to call the police on those not wearing masks.
A California woman said she was shoved to the ground because her mask slipped down under her nose. Her eyeglasses were broken in the assault. The mask had become covered with sweat because she was forced to wear it while waiting in line to visit a store when it was above 105 degrees Fahrenheit. Nobody helped her get back up after the attack.
A June 2020 story in the Anchorage Daily News said that in Juneau, Alaska, a former president of the Alaska Psychiatric Association was accused of punching a man in the face because he wasn’t wearing a mask in a grocery store.
After a violent mob was caught on video attacking a woman in a Staten Island supermarket for not wearing a mask, the segregationist foot soldiers at Democratic Underground praised the mob. However, a commenter on another site said the mob was “Trump’s people.”
Another video caught a man dumping a tub of dirty water over another man’s head in a store because he didn’t have a mask.
A man in Sebring, Florida, threatened to shoot up a Publix grocery store because customers weren’t wearing masks.
WHDH-TV reported that at a Walgreens drugstore in Bridgewater, Massachusetts, a man pulled a gun on another man for not wearing a mask.
A YouTube commenter cheered a woman who assaulted an unmasked man at a Kroger in Richmond, Virginia, by spraying disinfectant in his face.
KCTV-TV reported in November 2020 that a man was attacked and knocked to the ground at the parking lot of a Price Chopper supermarket in Blue Springs, Missouri, because he wasn’t wearing a mask.
In that same town, a restaurant was shut down for not enforcing masks. Then the restaurant reopened, calling itself a private club, which exempted it from mask rules.
A woman slammed a shopping cart into a man and spit on him at a Costco store in Mettawa, Illinois, for not wearing a mask. It turned out the assailant was a special education teacher in Chicago. She denied spitting on the man, even though she was caught on video. She was found guilty of disorderly conduct.
WFXT-TV reported that a man intentionally coughed on a family attending a wedding at Acadia National Park because they weren’t wearing masks.
WBTS-TV reported in November 2020 that a man spit on two women for not wearing masks on a hiking trail in Ashburnham, Massachusetts. The assailant was later arrested.
In January 2021, the Sacramento Bee reported that in Glendale, California, a jogger spit and hurled racial slurs toward at least eight different people because they weren’t wearing masks outdoors. The victims ranged in age from 13 to 78. One of the victims said the assailant told him to “go back to his country” and slapped him.
In Britain, a man kicked a teenage girl in the face for not wearing a mask on a bus. The assailant also made racist comments.
A video just recently emerged of a woman pushing another woman onto a subway track in Jersey City, New Jersey, because she wasn’t wearing a mask.
In the Czech Republic, a man was taken to the ground and put in a chokehold by police in front of his three-year-old son for not wearing a mask just walking down an empty street.
Police in Trinidad & Tobago boasted that almost 28,000 citations were issued to people breaking mask orders. It was later reported that very few of the tickets were ever paid. West Hollywood, California, said it had cited 124 people, but only five paid up. The city said unpaid fines would be referred to a debt collector. Good luck with that!
The Everett Herald reported that in Everett, Washington, a man shoved another man into a glass door at a gas station and hit him with his car for his lack of a mask. Broken bones resulted.
A man rammed a shopping cart into a woman at a Walmart in Park City, Utah, because she wasn’t wearing a mask.
A racist website bashed unmasked attendees of a festival in Kansas City, Missouri, frequented by Black people. Commenters echoed the site’s racism, repeatedly complaining about what they called “those people.”
The St. Paul Pioneer Press reported that in December 2020, a man showed up at a gym in Maplewood, Minnesota, where he was not a member to try to enforce masks—yet another vigilante action. He pulled a gun on the manager.
A video emerged of a passenger of the Washington, D.C., subway cussing out a group of diaperless teens and telling them to return to their “Midwestern shithole.” In January 2021, however, subway officials said they would not strictly enforce the nationwide mask mandate for mass transit. The general manager of D.C.’s transit system told WTOP radio, “We do not have operators confront customers.”
In April 2021, a video appeared on YouTube showing a violent mob cheering when a maskless woman was ejected from a Miami commuter train.
In Spain in July 2021, an angry mob ejected a man from a train for not wearing a mask.
At an IGA supermarket in Ocean Shores, Washington, a man started a fight with two maskless men. The instigator got the worst of it and expected the other men to be charged. The prosecutor did not file charges, correctly saying the instigator “lost the fight he picked.” Justice didn’t always prevail though, as assailants in some other jurisdictions went unpunished while their victims were charged for fighting back.
It is folly to say that nobody was ever imprisoned simply for not wearing a mask. A court in Singapore sentenced a man from Britain to six weeks in prison for not wearing a mask on a commuter train. In addition, the court ordered him to undergo a psychiatric evaluation—as if not wearing a mask was a sign of mental illness.
An online commenter in Bellingham, Washington, said a middle-aged man approached his eighth grade son and his friend when they were walking down the street and said, “I need you two to put masks on or I’m gonna have to shove 11 inches up your ass.”
In July 2020, KTNV-TV reported that only 49 percent of businesses in Nevada were even following the statewide mask mandate. Widespread noncompliance was found in home improvement stores.
In a video posted on YouTube in August 2020, a woman obtaining food at a Burger King in Ohio told a man and his three children that they deserved to die because they weren’t wearing masks. This harangue made one of the children cry.
A website reported the story of a cleaning woman who worked for years at a luxury apartment complex and was given two years of free rent there as a reward for her service. The website included photos of building managers presenting her with her new apartment. COVID maximalists predictably griped in the comment section that the woman and the managers weren’t wearing masks.
Guards at a Barcelona transit station threw a man down a set of steps for not wearing a mask. At a station near Madrid, guards took a man to the ground for not wearing a mask. Then the guards had the nerve to charge the man with assault. At least two of the guards were not wearing masks themselves.
As late as November 2021—when authorities were digging in on enforcement despite a vaccine having long since been released—20 police officers showed up to arrest two teenage girls in Madison, Wisconsin, for not wearing masks on a bus.
Nearly a year later—in October 2022—a school group made up of children ages 10 and 11 was kicked off a train in Spain for not wearing masks. Their teachers were ejected too. They all wound up stranded for 2½ hours.
The “new normal” ushered in a new front in the war on workers. After a video reportedly appeared of a man being attacked at a Costco in Florida for not wearing a mask, the man was inexplicably fired from his job—even though he was the victim, and he wasn’t on work time or doing anything connected with his job. An online commenter reported seeing a maskless woman shopping at an Illinois supermarket and noticed she was wearing a name badge from a hospital where she worked. The commenter promptly called the hospital in an attempt to have her fired—even though there was no indication she was on work time. In another incident, a nurse was placed on leave when it was discovered that not only did she forgo masks when she wasn’t at work but also dared to go on out-of-town trips and allow her children to play with other kids.
Writing for Slate in April 2020, Shannon Palus urged people to stop yelling at joggers for not wearing masks. Palus wrote, “Evidence in favor of widespread mask use by civilians (runners or no) is already limited, though if you’re in a crowded space like a grocery store, it seems like wearing one could help, a little. Outdoor transmission, one expert told my colleague Henry Grabar, is ‘possible but improbable.’ ”
Through most of the pandemic, the ACLU was asleep at the switch—unlike civil liberties groups in other countries. In June 2020, the Ontario Civil Liberties Association urged civil disobedience against mask mandates because these rules lacked “any reliable scientific basis.” The organization wrote, “Governments are enforcing laws, by-laws and ‘health’ directives that thereby put the general population at risk, while not having satisfied the onus of demonstrating that their draconian policies are safe, and not harmful to the very fabric of society.”
In September 2020, a court in Lyon, France, ruled in favor of French civil liberties groups that challenged mask mandates. The court said a local mandate constituted a “serious and illegal infringement” on liberty.
The ACLU apparently had sued over Puerto Rico’s restrictions back in April of that year, because these rules were so draconian that even grocery stores had to close on Easter weekend. This suit was diametrically opposed to the ACLU’s later actions that demanded more restrictions instead of opposing them.
Mexico News Daily reported in October 2020 that Mexico would have no nationwide mask orders, as Deputy Health Minister Dr. Hugo López-Gatell Ramírez said masks’ effectiveness was “overstated.” President López Obrador said using force to carry out COVID orders was an authoritarian strategy “that conservatives love, it fascinates them.”
In Lancaster, California, Mayor R. Rex Parris—a Republican who had earlier endorsed an alliance with the Chinese government—said not wearing a mask was “an act of domestic terrorism.” Parris’s earlier Chinese ventures were so deep that they prompted an investigation by state officials. In addition, back in 2010, Parris had declared Lancaster “a Christian community”, which angered advocates for separation of church and state.
Police in New South Wales were caught on video smashing an elderly man’s head into the side of a car because he didn’t require masks in his store. That’s like beating up Mr. Hooper, the friendly Sesame Street storekeeper.
In Melbourne, a security guard choked a teenager unconscious for not wearing a mask.
Cops in Brisbane arrested an elderly man because he didn’t wear a mask while exercising at a park. The arrest caused him to have a heart attack. Police then wouldn’t let him get his medication from his backpack.
In January 2021, WTOP radio reported that at a Chipotle restaurant in Manassas, Virginia, a guard was accused of severely beating a maskless customer. The guard was then charged with malicious wounding.
Two customers assaulted a woman at an Iowa drugstore for not wearing a mask.
Spain issued many fines for not wearing masks. The situation in Andalusia was so bad that authorities hired 3,000 informants to catch barefaced beachgoers even if they were alone.
Mob rule persisted even in times and places where nobody was officially obligated to wear masks. New York City held its Democratic mayoral primary in June 2021—when the city and state had almost no mask rules. But an online commenter reported being harassed at the polling place by an angry mob for not wearing a mask. This was despite the fact that this voter reported encountering no problems voting unmasked in 2020. After the attack, the board of elections confirmed that voters were allowed to vote without a mask.
KIRO-TV reported in July 2021 that a woman allegedly pepper sprayed a woman and her child in a Seattle elevator because they weren’t wearing masks. The attacker faced assault-related charges stemming from the incident.
In another incident—apparently also in Washington state—an older man started a fight at a bank with another older man because he didn’t have a mask. The assailant tore up a check belonging to the unmasked man and chased him outside to his truck. As the barefaced man was fleeing from the crazed attacker, a wreck almost occurred.
In Milan, a customer of an ATM was spit on by a couple for not wearing a mask. In Canada, a customer of an IKEA store was followed all about the store by another customer for not wearing a mask. In Las Vegas, a gas station clerk shot a customer for not wearing a mask. The clerk then fatally shot himself.
At a shopping mall in Toronto, a man was caught on video attacking a maskless woman. Also in Toronto, a man was caught on video haranguing an unmasked woman at a Circle K convenience store.
At an Ace Hardware store in Seattle, a man was caught on video starting a brawl with another man because he wasn’t wearing a mask.
Video captured a man being punched and shoved to the ground at a California restaurant for not wearing a mask, but a TV account acted as if it was the victim’s fault. As part of the mob mentality that reigned, customers offered to buy the assailant dinner.
A group of six attacked an Asian woman on the New York subway for not wearing a mask. During the attack, the assailants made racist comments as the victim was repeatedly punched in the face. Another anti-Asian assault took place on a Manhattan street. The victim’s jaw was dislocated.
The Baltimore Sun reported that a Baltimore police detective was charged with assault for slamming a man to the ground because he failed to wear a mask at a grocery store.
In November 2021, a security guard stabbed a customer at a Vons supermarket in Santa Monica, California, because he wasn’t wearing a mask.
That same month, a 45-year-old Oakland man died in jail after being arrested for not wearing a mask on a bus back in June.
A guard at a Ralph’s supermarket was caught on video assaulting a woman for not wearing a mask.
In Minden, Ontario, a 73-year-old man was fatally gunned down by police for not wearing a mask at a grocery store.
The owner of a Florida gym was arrested because a customer was seen working out without a mask. This was after the WHO explicitly stated that people should not exercise in a mask, because it inhibits breathing and causes growth of microorganisms.
An employee of a McDonald’s in Decatur, Georgia, pulled a gun on a woman for not wearing a mask.
A man was caught on video threatening a Costco employee with pepper spray for not wearing a mask.
A brokerage firm in Vietnam refused to pay bonuses to employees who failed to wear masks.
Mexico News Daily reported that in May 2020, a man was beaten to death by police in the municipality of Ixtlahuacán de los Membrillos in the Mexican state of Jalisco because he wasn’t wearing a mask. The beating was condemned by the Jalisco Human Rights Commission, which concluded, “By beating the victim on repeated occasions, the police officers committed acts of torture, violating his right to personal safety.” The deadly beating was swept under the rug by most of the media, but it prompted protests in Guadalajara and Mexico City. Ixtlahuacán police officials were also arrested in connection with the horrifying attack.
In October 2020, Mexico News Daily reported that a visitor to Puerto Escondido in the Mexican state of Oaxaca was violently arrested when he was found not wearing a mask outdoors. As he was being transported in the police car, police kept stopping and violently arresting others over mask violations. Finally, there were seven or eight people packed into the car. He was then jailed for hours with 10 barefaced people, and there was urine and feces all over the floor of the cell. The man was splashed with blood and sweat when other inmates kept fighting. The tight quarters and unsanitary conditions prove that mask orders were not about safety. The man was released when he paid a small fine.
In December 2020, a Reddit commenter said he and his girlfriend were accosted by a man for not wearing masks at a picnic in a park. The assailant called the couple “spastics who deserve to die from COVID.” The same post said there was a Reddit thread in which people tried to blacklist DJ’s at raves who opposed COVID restrictions. Some of the blackballed DJ’s had already lost their entire livelihoods because the restrictions canceled their shows.
The above events are enough for me to not entertain the claims of mask drumbeaters, but there’s more! A news outlet reported what appeared to be an attack by mask opponents against a business, but the video of the incident was almost certainly staged. Furthermore, the source was unreliable. This source had been a Republican leader who served on government boards but left the party in protest and became a self-described “conservative Democrat” because Republican officials allegedly failed to manipulate COVID data to bolster his aims.
Rangers at Carlsbad Caverns National Park noted that masks were creating litter. They kept finding discarded masks all over the park. Officials at Yellowstone National Park said masks were being tossed into the park’s iconic geysers.
In a July 2020 e-mail, the head of Wisconsin’s Department of Natural Resources absurdly decreed that employees must wear masks even if working at home using Zoom.
Nantucket, Massachusetts, enacted a diaper mandate over just four cases in a week.
Many of these mandates included medical exemptions, but as time wore on, there were more and more mandates with no exemptions. If a person’s disability prevented them from wearing a mask, they were often told that this was their tough luck. They were told they could not visit businesses or public buildings, and that was too bad. Laws like the Americans with Disabilities Act were rendered a mere husk. A video showed people with various qualifying medical conditions being forced by police to leave city hall in Florence, South Carolina, because they could not wear masks. Police said the city’s mandate did not have medical exceptions. This clearly violated the ADA. The city manager later said it did have exemptions, yet police continued to try to enforce the mandate. Meanwhile, at least one officer plus other city employees were not wearing masks.
The Philadelphia Inquirer reported that mask compliance at a major Philadelphia area shopping mall was “uneven.” Unfortunately, later articles and videos from other sources showed increasing compliance at other malls around the U.S., perhaps due to fear of heightened enforcement.
We should all be able to agree that milestones like weddings, graduations, and even funerals should be free of mask mandates. I would be spinning in my casket if masks were required at my funeral. And why would any couple want to be forced to wear masks in their wedding photos? What if they want something to show to their children someday that isn’t a COVID documentary? But some blabbermouth in Vermont actually went through the trouble of going to the media because they saw photos online that someone had posted of their own maskless wedding. WCAX-TV actually ran an entire story about the event’s lack of masks. The station interviewed only tourists—not locals. If the pandemic was roaring so far out of control that masks were needed, why was anyone going on vacation? Just as silly, village and town leaders held a meeting about the wedding—even though the community did not seem to have any local mask mandate that would have applied at this event. All that in a town that had only 12 known COVID cases in seven months.
CBS-owned WBBM-TV whipped up a similar outcry over a mostly maskless wedding near Chicago. The tone of WBBM’s report was almost a self-parody. It sounded like it was straight out of the Onion. Another of W-Big-Bowel-Movement’s complaints was that people ate at the wedding despite Illinois’s ban on indoor dining. The station wasted airtime on that?
It isn’t only masks. Other media outlets raised a stink about weddings that supposedly violated COVID-related curfews—even though the initial lockdowns had long since ended.
Photo albums became full of pictures of new moms who were forced to give birth while wearing a mask. A Massachusetts hospital forced a woman to wear a mask throughout the 20 hours she was in labor. The BBC reported that the U.K. specifically exempted women who were giving birth from mask rules, yet some hospitals defied this exemption. A woman was even forced to wear a mask while undergoing a Caesarean section. Yet NBC’s Today and ABC’s Good Morning America gleefully defended forced maskage during childbirth. As a result of this policy, the U.S. in 2021 saw its highest rate of home births in 30 years, according to a National Vital Statistics report.
In January 2023, New York City health officials doctored a photo of a new mother holding her baby by adding a mask to the mother’s face. That same month, a hospital in Winchester, Massachusetts, was reportedly still requiring mothers to give birth in a mask.
People who made these rules had zero regard for special moments in life. They proved it by doubling down on failed restrictions month after month, year after year. They had absolutely no humanity at all.
In August 2021, Boston’s unelected, incompetent Acting Mayor Kim Janey barked down a new mask mandate, even though Boston was one of the most heavily vaccinated places in America and had very few cases then. The county had only 11 deaths over the previous month. The reasoning for this mandate was not anything that was actually occurring at the time, but a spike in cases that could have theoretically happened later. Let me reiterate that when a government issues a major order like this, the government has the burden of proving it will work. They can’t just say it “might” work against what “might” later occur. A Reddit commenter who was going to have a wedding shortly thereafter wrote in part:
“We have proof of vaccination from 100% of our guests (no kids). I’ll have to wear a mask for my first dance with my husband. Mask for the ceremony, no first kiss. Masks in all of our pictures. And everything is entirely paid for, no refunds. We have rescheduled 3 times and had our original venue go out of business, losing us thousands.
“All for no reason other than ‘well things might get worse’ and no metrics to back it up.”
In another post, this commenter said, “Because of this I have to wear a mask while marrying my husband. I can’t see his face during our first dance. That’s not 20 min in a store, that’s a lifetime memory.” In still another post, this user said in part:
“I’m crying thinking about our first dance with a mask on (required for dance floors with no exceptions for ‘ceremonial dances’).
“I have no happy memories of wedding planning. I don’t want to do the wedding anymore. I’m done.”
Janey had become acting mayor when Mayor Marty Walsh was appointed Secretary of Labor by President Biden. Walsh was picked for Secretary of Labor even though he had launched his own war on workers in 2015 by firing a city employee for participating in a Black Lives Matter rally on her own time. Fortunately, Janey went on to lose the nonpartisan mayoral primary because of her mask mandate. Unfortunately, Boston area officials didn’t learn. After Janey lost, officials gave a public presentation about their draconian measures in which they were heckled mercilessly. It was reminiscent of Nicolae Ceaușescu’s final speech.
A few people complained to the media because an outdoor Billy Joel concert in Buffalo didn’t mandate masks. They had to be big shots and open up their mouths.
In Palm Beach County, Florida, a woman was removed from a county meeting for not wearing a mask, even though not all of the public officials there were wearing one.
These stories have piled up like there’s no tomorrow. Because they weren’t stemmed right from the start, we have to spend more time figuring out how to bring about accountability. There has to be a robust inquiry into what took place.
I attempted suicide because of mask mandates. I was refused access to healthcare for 2 years because my local mental health services refused to acknowledge my exemption. My life was made such a living hell by these people that I just wanted to die.
It's been years since all this started but I feel stuck, like I can't move on and process what happened fully. I feel like I'll never trust another human being again as long as I live, now that I know the level of cruelty people are capable of.
Here is my story in full if you wish to take the time to read it;
https://dailysceptic.org/2023/04/03/masks-give-me-panic-attacks-but-the-nhs-refused-to-exempt-me-leaving-me-cut-off-from-support-and-suicidal/