An arrest warrant was issued for a woman who refused to wear a mask at a Texas bank, saying to a police officer, “What are you going to do, arrest me?”
The police issued an arrest warrant for Terry Wright, 65, of Grants Pass, Oregon. The incident on Thursday at Bank of America in Galveston was captured by the policeman’s body camera, the Galveston County Daily News reported.
Police said they had obtained an arrest warrant for resisting arrest and charges of trespassing.
Greg Abbott, the governor of Texas, ended state orders by requiring people to wear masks in public places, declaring that companies must decide for themselves what precautions Covid-19 should take on their properties. Many companies have kept their own masking rules in place.
The police said a bank manager called the police after Wright refused to wear a mask while he was inside and refused to leave the building when asked.
The police department released the camera images of the policeman’s body. In the video, Wright can be seen standing in the middle of the bank’s lobby, surrounded by other customers, all wearing masks.
Wright told the employee that she had gone to the bank to make a withdrawal. The policeman asked her to go outside or put on a mask. She refused.
“What are you going to do, arrest me?” she asked.
He replied, “Yes, for intrusion into the site.”
She said, “This is hilarious.”
Wright told the officer that the law said she didn’t need to wear a mask. As the policeman removed the handcuffs, she stepped away and started walking towards the door. The officer stopped her and forced her to the floor. After being handcuffed, she complained that her foot was injured.
“Police brutality right here, people,” she said. Answers of “no” and “no, it’s not” could be heard.
Police said Wright suffered minor injuries during the fight and was taken to a hospital for treatment.
Wright told the Washington Post that she never covered her face inside stores, even when the statewide mandate was in effect. She said she lives in a trailer park across Galveston Bay in Hitchcock, Texas.
She told the newspaper that she was “attacked” and compared the mask requirements with the way Nazi Germany forced Jews to identify themselves with a star of David.
She also said she believed in a “plandemic” in a reference to a documentary-style video in which an anti-vaccine activist promotes a series of questionable, false and potentially dangerous theories of the coronavirus.