A group of customers in a US grocery store went ballistic as a woman shopped without a face mask, yelling at her until she walked off with her cart full of groceries.
The heated confrontation was captured on a video posted Saturday to Facebook and quickly went viral on Twitter. “What happens in Staten Island when you don’t wear a mask in ShopRite!” noted the poster, who said it had been filmed by a friend who sent it to her.
It was a surprising scene given all the media attention recently to maskless demonstrators protesting against health and safety measures to help stop the spread of Covid-19. The people yelling at the shopper were over-the-top angry, and several shouted obscenities and insults.
Comments on social media ranged from attacks on the yelling “savages” to “finally” people are standing up for safety.
The woman who posted the video noted: “I get ppl are anxious NO reason to act the way some of them are ... especially guy following her to scream at her and call her a pig!”
No one reached at the ShopRite stores on Staten Island would comment on the incident to HuffPost.
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said Monday that he won’t allow Staten Island to reopen businesses ahead of the rest of the city, as local lawmakers have requested. They’ve argued that certain required safety parameters have already been met. But Cuomo said the city has to move at a unified pace because of travel among the boroughs.
Almost 800 residents in Staten Island’s Richmond County have died of Covid-19, making it 25th on the list of counties in the nation with the highest number of deaths.
“All New Yorkers must wear a face covering when they need to be outside their home and may not be able to maintain at least 6 feet of distance between themselves and others, according to the New York City Department of Health. “Examples include riding the subway, ferry, or bus; riding in a taxi or car service; walking on a busy street; going to pharmacies and grocery stores; and going to the doctor or a hospital.”
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