Supermarket mask dispute ends in one killed, three wounded
More conflict, more shootings, and over micro-aggressions.
DECATUR, Ga. (NEXSTAR) – A triple shooting at a Georgia grocery store Monday afternoon started with a dispute over a mask and left a cashier dead and both the suspect and a deputy wounded, authorities say.
The suspect, 30-year-old Victor Lee Tucker, Jr., of Palmetto, Georgia, was checking out when he got into an argument about his mask with a female cashier at Big Bear Supermarket in Decatur, according to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation.
Tucker walked out without buying anything but immediately returned, pulling out a handgun and allegedly shooting the cashier shortly after 1 p.m. She was rushed to an area hospital where she was pronounced dead.
One of several people in the store at the time of the shooting was a 30-year DeKalb County Police Dept. veteran now working with the sheriff’s office as a reserve deputy, DeKalb County Sheriff Melody Maddox said.
Conflict over masks is likely to continue as the debate over how and when to reopen the country intensifies. If possible, try to assume as little as possible about others based on whether or not they’re wearing a mask.
The grocery clerk who asks you to put one on might actually be a right-wing Republican, who is simply enforcing the store’s policy or is concerned about others’ health. The maskless runner who exposes others to their “breath cloud” might be a Democrat who just can’t stand the feeling of running with a mask. We might be irritated by others’ choices, but the intensity of our reactions may be more measured if we’re not making faulty assumptions about them.
This is not to say that wearing a mask in public is simply a matter of personal choice. Masks aren’t like seatbelts: They protect others more than they protect you, and the CDC recommends wearing them in public spaces when you can’t appropriately social distance.
Last November, Shane Michael was involved in a fight at a Vision 4 Less store in Des Moines when another customer took issue with the way Michael wore his COVID-19 face mask. www.nytimes.com/…
If you’re reluctant to wear a mask when required, question any automatic thoughts about others trying to take away your freedom. Most likely their goal is just to keep everyone safe, not to make you buy into a certain worldview or to force you to eat arugula.
Everyone has had to make sacrifices during national emergencies, like military service during times of war. Our forebears gave up their freedom to eat chocolate during World War II so that more of it could go to the soldiers. Wearing a mask could be seen as a patriotic expression of self-sacrifice, as you do your part to defend our country from a microscopic invader. Wear it with pride as you hold onto your liberties.
Aaand first story as an Express fellow at the @nytimes is up! A man in Iowa will be going to prison for 10 years after fighting a man who told him to put his mask over his nose https://t.co/JjOUn4bJ4W
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene apologized Monday for affronting people with recent comments comparing the required wearing of safety masks in the House to the horrors of the Holocaust https://t.co/JK4YRvh56m
James Alan Fox, a criminologist and professor at Northeastern University, told the Associated Press that the rising number of mass shootings is worrisome.
An alleged insurrectionist affiliated w/ the far-right Three Percenters who was indicted Thursday in connection w/ the Capitol riot is also involved in organizing anti-lockdown protests as the founder of a group associated w/ the Mercer family.
