Cop Taunts Straphanger In Astoria Who Told Him To Mask Up: Report

ASTORIA, QUEENS — In an interaction caught on video, an unmasked NYPD officer told a straphanger in an Astoria subway station that it’s “a problem” that “America is so free,” a new report shows.

The video of the maskless officer, which was first reported by the New York Post, was taken by Alex Fermin last Saturday at the 46 Street subway station in Astoria around 11:30 a.m., when he said that the police officer began harassing him.

“[The officer] yelled after me and then [he and his partner] followed me halfway across the platform before getting in my face,” Fermin told The Post of the interaction he had with Powell, after photographing and then filming the officer not wearing a mask — which is required of all NYPD officers when on the subway, regardless of vaccination status.

The Post identified the officer as Karim Powell. Fermin’s video shows Powell with a blue surgical mask under his neck, not covering his mouth or nose.

“What are you going to do about it,” Powell asked Fermin. “What am I going to do about you not wearing a mask on the subway? I took a picture, that’s what it was,” said Fermin in the video — to which the officer responded, “go tell the city, tell the mayor, all right?”

The officer repeatedly told Fermin to tell the city his badge number, and said that Fermin couldn’t tell him when to wear his mask.

Fermin said that the officers walked behind him across the platform, which was “particularly traumatizing” since he was grabbed by cops from behind during the George Floyd protests last summer, The Post reported.

“It’s not like I was trying to start something. I didn’t say a word before he hollered and started following me,” Fermin told The Post.

News that police would be “disciplined” for not wearing masks amid the spread of the highly contagious delta variant, comes as top officials repeatedly flouted the city’s mask-wearing rules, including on the subway, where masks have been mandatory since the start of the pandemic.

Read the full New York Post article here.