The daylight armed robbery of a George Town jewellery store has prompted calls for a mask ban in public areas in the Cayman Islands.
During the robbery, CCTV footage captured the image of a man with a white cloth mask covering his head and face smashing open glass cabinets as Christmas shoppers looked on.
That robbery on Saturday, 13 Dec., the second in 24 hours, was part of a growing trend of increasingly daring daytime raids. Last week masked men robbed tourists in two separate incidents on Seven Mile Beach.
Now Deputy Opposition Leader Kenneth Bryan is calling for new rules on wearing masks in public. He said the widespread use of lightweight ski masks among landscapers and construction workers and other professions was making it too easy for people with bad intentions to blend in.
He has filed a private member’s motion asking for the law to be amended to restrict mask use to medical conditions and for personal safety on work sites. In the same way as construction workers leave their hard hats at the site, he argues they could leave their masks behind when they go out in public.
“If you saw somebody outside your glass door coming with a mask, you don’t know if it’s a customer or somebody coming to rob you. So we have to change that culture,” he said.
Bryan believes the motion, if approved, will help prevent masked criminals from hiding in plain sight.
He said masking in public has become commonplace since the COVID-19 era but is no longer necessary from a public health perspective. While he supports health exemptions for surgical-type masks, he says no-one should be walking the streets in a balaclava or ski mask.
“Before this masking culture was created, post the pandemic, people were on guard if they saw somebody with a mask,” he said, adding that it was now possible for someone to rob a store and leave their mask on all the way home without attracting suspicion.
Changing that would make it easier for police to prevent crimes and to solve them afterwards, he believes. If masks were banned in public, anyone committing a robbery would likely have to remove it after escaping the store, making it easier to catch them on CCTV or have witnesses identify them.
The motion signed by Bryan and seconded by Opposition Leader Joey Hew, asks for restrictions on ‘public masking’ and suggests the matter is of national importance and should be debated as soon as possible. It suggests medical exemptions should be defined and limited to masks that don’t conceal a person’s identity. Similarly, the motion seeks to preserve mask use for personal protection in the workplace but argues that should be restricted to the parameters of the job site.
“A lot of people are not happy about this, so I’m hoping that the government will be on board,” Bryan said.
“Hopefully we’ll join hands together, government and opposition, to make the necessary changes so we can bring back a sense of safety in our community and allow the police to be able to do their jobs better by unmasking these criminals.”
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Maybe they can push it through overnight like the immigration bill. This mask thing should have been dealt with 20 years ago. That said, how will you deal with the Arabic masks since they are religious. Why wouldn’t these robbers just wear a religious mask. On top of that, the US has gun laws and there is still guns.
The same applies to Cayman. There is still guns and the mask law won’t stop people from wearing masks. Why not address the people wearing the masks. I’ve never seen an accountant or lawyer wearing these masks.
Masks on island are typically worn by our locals or Jamacians. That is the honest truth of the matter.
Great idea. But who will enforce the law when one hardly ever sees police officers on the streets.
Allow persons in high risk occupations to be armed, at their place of work. Jewelry stores, gas stations, convenience stores.
Make robbery a high risk occupation.
And no release on bail for crimes of violence.
Totally agree Norm. You have hit the nail on the head.
Reasonable suggestions from MP Bryan, which should also include leaving their construction safety orange or green clothing on the site when the leave. But this will not curtail brazen robberies as long as CIPS remain ineffective in their presence to first deter crime, then to detect it and make arrests. They always go for the low hanging fruit.
Good that MP Bryan has made allowances for medical masks in his proposal, not that it would make a fundamental difference to a criminal who wants to disguise himself. Balaclava, medical mask, handkerchief, t-shirt…anything works for the crim.
My personal stake in this issue is that I wear a medical mask everywhere indoors I go, except my home. I do it to protect my very vulnerable health, with my doctors’ encouragement. I will do that for the rest of my life, as covid, flu and other respiratory ailments are always around. I haven’t had covid as yet and can’t risk catching it.
Cayman has two modes to address anything – do nothing or overkill. I just hope that the lawmakers and law enforcers don’t go to overkill mode and make criminals out of everyone wearing a mask, just because of the mask.
We shall see.