First arrest under new mask law made in Nassau County

Nassau Police Commissioner Patrick Ryder, along with County Executive Bruce Blakeman, provided an update on the first arrest related to the new mask law, at the Theodore Roosevelt Executive & Legislative Building in Mineola on Aug. 28.

Deputy County Executive for Public Safety Tatum Fox, Senator Patricia Canzoneri-Fitzpatrick, State Sen. Jack Martins and Assemblyman Jake Blumencranz also attended.

According to Ryder, Wesslin Omar Ramirez Castillo, 18, of Hicksville, was taken into custody on Aug. 25, after Nassau County police officers responded to reports of a suspicious individual walking east on Spindle Road near the border of Levittown and Hicksville.

Castillo, Ryder said, was dressed in black and wearing a mask, which drew attention under the newly enacted Nassau County Mask Transparency Act, which prohibits the concealment of identity in public spaces.

“This individual himself was not suspicious,” Ryder said. “The fact that he was wearing the mask is why the call came in.”

Officers saw Castillo allegedly displaying what officials said was suspicious behavior and attempting to hide a large bulge in his waistband.

After further investigation, the officers discovered that the bulge was a 14-inch knife. Police say Castillo allegedly resisted complying with the officers' commands but was eventually arrested without further incident.

Castillo lives about a mile away from where he was arrested, Ryder said. He was born in Guatemala and allegedly entered the country illegally in 2019. According to Ryder, Castillo was suspected of having loose ties to gang affiliations.

Ryder added that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement were notified about Castillo.

He was charged with criminal possession of a weapon, obstructing governmental administration, and violating the Nassau County Mask Transparency Act, which went into effect on Aug. 21, and was arraigned on Aug. 26, at Family Court in Westbury.

Canzoneri-Fitzpatrick said that due to New York’s bail reform laws, which ended the use of money bail and jail for most cases involving misdemeanors and lower-level felonies, judges were prohibited from considering the alleged dangerousness of Castillo, and, therefore, has been released.

“Our cashless bail does not allow our judges to hold an individual, such as this, because the charges were misdemeanors,” Canzoneri-Fitzpatrick said.

She called on Gov. Kathy Hochul to introduce legislation like the county’s mask law, to prevent people committing crimes to hide their identity.

The county’s mask law prohibits the wearing of non-religious and non-health-related face coverings in public spaces. According to Blakeman, the law provides police with another resource to allow them to decide to gauge whether a potential suspect is engaged in a legitimate activity or not.

Implementing mask laws have been controversial in the state. During a June news conference, Gov. Hochul said she was in talks with lawmakers about potentially implementing a mask ban in New York City subways to combat people hiding their identities while committing anti-Semitic acts, which have been on the rise since the start of the Israel-Hamas war last October.

Meanwhile, Disability Rights of New York, an organization that provides free legal and advocacy services to people with disabilities, filed a class action lawsuit to stop Blakeman’s mask law, arguing that the ban poses a threat to public health and discriminates against people with disabilities.

After signing the bill into law, Blakeman noted that the ban would not abridge people’s free speech or right to protest, but instead protect those who are threatened with violence.

“Those are situations that we can not tolerate and they’re not consistent with the United States constitution,” Blakeman said.

Blakeman noted that the county was recently named by U.S. News & World Report as, “The safest county in America,” which Blakeman attributed to the county’s commitment to law enforcement, but noted that Nassau has to “fight against laws that give criminals more rights than victims, such as cashless bail and the open border policy.

“If we don’t give our police officers the tools necessary to combat crime, someone with a knife like this could potentially kill somebody.”