A Boston man has been arrested after police said he pointed a gun at a man in a parking lot for not wearing a face covering inside a store.
Todd Goulston, 59, has been charged with assault with a dangerous weapon, disorderly conduct, and disturbing the peace for allegedly aiming a gun at a man who did not wear a face mask inside a Walgreens despite a statewide coronavirus mask order, according to the Boston Herald.
Police said that at around 5:20 p.m. on July 3, they responded to a report of two men arguing inside a store over one of them not wearing a mask. The fight spilled into the parking lot where Goulston is accused of grabbing a gun from his car and pointing it at the unidentified 30-year-old maskless man.
Ghoulston’s license to carry a firearm and the firearms he kept in his home were seized by police.
Cities and states across the country are imposing face mask requirements to stem the spread of the coronavirus. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends people wear cloth face coverings “in public settings and when around people who don’t live in your household, especially when other social distancing measures are difficult to maintain.”
There has been pushback in some places against mask mandates, including lawsuits. At least one study has suggested that cloth masks lack effectiveness in combating the spread of the virus.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi recently called for a nationwide federal face mask mandate, calling it “long overdue.”
