Police investigating anti-mask activist targeting children with abuse
Police are looking into the actions of a man who was filmed yelling at a group of children for wearing masks in La Crescenta, just north of Los Angeles.
The video was filmed last week at a shopping centre near Rosemont Middle School.
“Masks don’t work! They’re [expletive] child abuse!” the man can be heard yelling at the kids in the video.
The man behind the camera can be heard telling the anti-masker, “dude, you need to leave the kids alone”.
“I don’t want you yelling at these kids,” he added to the man who wore a T-shirt with the message “your mask makes you look stupid”.
“That’s what I said to them ... stay scared, keep your masks on ... they don’t even work,” the man said.
The Crescenta Valley Sheriff’s station said in a statement that they are “aware of a video circulating on social media regarding a dispute between an anti-mask adult and others over the masking of children. The incident appears to have occurred off school grounds sometime last week”.
The station added that they take “all allegations seriously and will be conducting a thorough investigation”.
The man accused mask-wearers of being “hypnotised by fear”. According to CBS Los Angeles, parents have reported that the man has been abusing elementary and middle school students for months.
A mother said that when an officer arrived at the scene, he instead criticised the children.
“He decided to lecture the kids about freedom of speech instead of taking their names and writing an incident report,” Emily Lanigan told CBS.
A caller told the sheriff’s office on Monday that the man had been spitting and coughing on children, KTLA reported. He has also been pushing students and “poking heads into vehicles,” a spokesperson said.
“Look at this grown man with a mask on,” the man yelled a the person filming him. “What a fricken coward. What a total p***y … Where’d you buy your mask? The stupid store?”
“My kids are forced to wear a f***ing mask, so f*** you,” he added. “Masks don’t work. They’re f***ing child abuse. They’re a part of this tyranny. As long as you idiots keep running around with your f***ing mask on, then we still have a pandemic.”
“Clearly there is a problem here, not just a mental health problem but an anger management issue where he feels compelled to attack people who are more vulnerable than him,” Ms Lanigan told CBS.
LA Mayor Eric Garcetti announced earlier this month that police would arrest anti-maskers who abuse those who wear face coverings, following a number of similar incidents.
When people “start jeopardizing other people’s health and other people’s family members, that’s a bridge too far,” Mr Garcetti told the Los Angeles Times.
Lieutenant Robert Hahnlein of the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department has said that the agency is working with police in Glendale to investigate the man in the video.
A parent identified only as Ned told CBS LA that the children “were obviously getting scared”.
“He was getting three to five inches away and coughing in their faces,” he added.
“I have sympathy for the parents,” Lt Hahnlein said. “If my kids were there when this happened, I would be upset too and I would want something done.”
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention say that adults and children over the age of two should wear masks in “indoor public places” if they’re “not fully vaccinated”, “fully vaccinated and in an area with substantial or high transmission”, or “fully vaccinated and with weakened immune systems”.
“In general, you do not need to wear a mask in outdoor settings,” the CDC says, but they add that in “areas with high numbers of Covid-19 cases, consider wearing a mask in crowded outdoor settings and for activities with close contact with others who are not fully vaccinated”.
