Wearing a mask — or refusing to — can be a divisive choice in the United States, sometimes prompting dirty looks, angry words and confrontations that can escalate into violence.
The Chicago Tribune reported that prosecutors in Chicago said two sisters had attacked a store security guard with a garbage can. One had stabbed him repeatedly with a small knife on Sunday after he tried to insist that they wear masks and use the store’s hand sanitizer on entry.
The prosecutors said the altercation began after the women — identified as Jessica Hill, 21, and Jayla Hill, 18 — entered an athletic shoe store last weekend near closing time, the police said.
They quarreled with the guard, who had requested that they comply with the store’s coronavirus precautions, according to the prosecutors, and then hit him with a garbage can. As one held the man’s hair, the other pulled a small knife concealed in a comb and attacked him.
The Tribune reported that the guard suffered 27 puncture wounds, but that he did not require surgery or stitches.
The sisters were charged with attempted first-degree murder and ordered to be held without bail. At a hearing on Tuesday, according to The Tribune, their court-appointed lawyer said that both women had bipolar disorder and argued that the stabbing had been in self-defense.
It is not the most violent episode reported during the pandemic. At the beginning of May, a security guard at a Family Dollar store was fatally shot after an altercation that the guard’s wife said had occurred over a customer refusing to wear a face covering. In September, an 80-year-old man in upstate New York was killed after he asked a bar patron to wear a mask; the patron shoved the man to the ground, causing him to hit his head.
Retail workers, like the security guard in Chicago, are often the ones enforcing the mask rules — and the ones getting hurt.
In Illinois, new virus cases have increased nearly 70 percent in two weeks; in Chicago, growing outbreaks have led to new restrictions on businesses. Though experts have stated repeatedly that masks help curb the spread of the virus, enforcing mask requirements has been difficult.
The New York Times
Me: So how do you sneeze in a mask and if you do, do you get it all over your masked face?