Sal Orlando, Assistant News Editor
Heciel Nieves Bonilla, News Editor
Virginia’s legislature passed two bills this session prohibiting law enforcement from wearing facial coverings while engaged in official duties.
Senate Bill 352, patroned by Sen. Saddam Azlan Salim, D-Fairfax, and House Bill 1482, patroned by Del. Charlie Schmidt, D-Richmond, subject violating officials to “disciplinary action, including dismissal, demotion, suspension, transfer, or decertification” and create a class 1 misdemeanor for violators.
“If you have to commit certain things and you have to hide your identity, you know what you’re doing is wrong, and I think that’s what we’re gonna try to stop,” Salim said.
The Senate version applies an exception to law enforcement officers under agencies who have adopted and established a written policy for the individual.
Both bills exempt law-enforcement officers assigned to a special weapons and tactics team required to cover their faces while engaged in official duties, as well as sunglasses and facial coverings protecting against disease, infection and exposure to toxic substances.
“Other localities came and said, ‘We have law enforcement who are on motorcycles who have to wear a helmet with a shield on. How do you wanna handle that?’ Well, we said they can still wear that, but the moment that they’re in front of someone or they’re talking to someone, they have to sort of lift the visor up while still being identified as who they are,” Salim said.
Salim said the bill is meant to ensure federal law enforcement coming to Virginia is held accountable and able to provide identification. He added that he thinks local law enforcement will not have a problem with public identification, given it’s visibly available to the public who they are.
“We’ve seen some of this with ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] agents where they’re trying to arrest someone or they’re waiting outside of a courtroom to arrest someone, but no one knows who they are,” Salim said.
Such courthouse arrests occurred several times in Chesterfield last year, according to Virginia Mercury. A previous report by The CT also covered a possible upcoming ICE operations facility in Chesterfield County near several minority neighborhoods.
VCU criminal justice assistant professor Brad Lehmann said if an officer is doing public trusted consented activity, there is no reason to shield their identity because they are upholding the social contract.
He also said he understands officers can be doxxed if they are not shielding their identities, but that this does not outweigh the trust that the entire community should have in law enforcement displaying their identities.
Lehmann said he thinks if police can humanize their behavior as much as possible, it can build trust between the police and the community.
“That humanization really tends to help us create communication as opposed to breaking it down,” Lehmann said. “So putting a face shield, putting a mask on, putting something that hides an identity, is inherently non-humanistic. It’s hiding the human below it.”
As a previous law enforcement officer, Lehmann said he is sad things have gotten to the point where legislation must be passed to ensure law enforcement is going to be done in a transparent manner, but is happy legislators are willing to take up a “pretty powerful bill” to hold police accountable for their actions.
“So I think for police, if they can humanize their behavior as much as possible, which includes not hiding anything transparently, right, which is a name, a badge number, I mean, the most simplistic thing we have is our identity, our face, right and our personalities,” Lehmann said.
Third-year accounting student Maimunah Nuha approves of the bill, particularly in the context of states needing to take responsibility for federal law enforcement overreach in the form of ICE.
“Especially with a lot of things that’s been going on, like recent events with ICE agents and other forms of police brutality, it does serve a little bit of justice to show that a lot of these attacks onto civilians [and] citizens, that those police can be identified,” Nuha said.
First-year marketing student Ian Charbeneau supports the idea that law enforcement should remove their masks when engaging with the public, particularly to avoid the appearance of having “ill intent.” He questioned the behaviors of ICE agents while avoiding identification.
“They need to try to be cops,” Charbeneau said. “They need to not be trying to be like Batman. They’re not Batman.”
Exercise science student Deston Lawrence agreed the change would be positive given the longstanding fear of police from many, especially in light of their reactions to Black Lives Matter protests and the Rodney King riots before them.
“Having the non-masked officers will kind of make the community feel less prone to be afraid of the cops, and I feel like the cops’ purpose is to protect and serve, and having a mask on your officers is already kind of not representing that purpose that they have,” Lawrence said.