Let me see if I have this right:  The law says that you have to wear a mask on public transportation in New York City, including in subway stations and on the trains.  But police officers feel free to ignore the law.  They not only don’t enforce it, but they don’t observe it.  And our mayor says, point blank, the cops won’t enforce the law!  What am I missing here?

Apparently, the Police commissioner and other brass are equally blasé about their responsibilities.  This NY Post headline says a lot: Commissioner Shea, other cops flout NYPD’s mask-wearing rules.  I guess that’s your taxpayer’s dollars at work.

I wrote a letter to the NY Times.  It appears in today’s paper.  Here’s what I said:

To the Editor:

The report on how the Germans have been dealing with masks and the other societal questions posed by the Covid-19 epidemic was enlightening. Alec MacGillis mentions that he has seen police officers reminding public transit users to mask up. By contrast, I have seen no enforcement whatsoever of the mask mandates on New York City’s subways. In fact, I saw two police officers enter the Astor Place station and neither one of them had masks on.

It might be a boost to our city’s efforts to beat this thing if our police enforced the law, let alone observed it.

To the credit of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, the agency that runs the subways, buses, and commuter trains, they have told their police to enforce the mask mandate.  But the NY Police Department patrols the subways and they’re simply just not on board.

Is asking law enforcement to do its job asking too much?