ST. JOHN'S, N.L. — Working at a busy convenience store in the centre of St. John’s, where robberies and thefts have been on the rise over the last number of years, Natasha Barry has always tried to take notice of each customer.
Now that everyone’s wearing a mask due to the COVID-19 pandemic, she looks at everyone as a potential criminal.
“I try to study everyone,” said Barry, who has worked at Mary Ann’s Convenience Store on Prince of Wales Street for the past year. “I try to figure out who they are and what they look like.”
But with people’s faces half covered by masks, it can be tough.
The provincial government’s health regulation, effective Aug. 24, to make wearing non-medical masks mandatory in all indoor public space has made identifying perpetrators — including thieves, robbers, home invaders and attackers — more challenging.
Business employees, including store clerks and taxi drivers, have expressed concern about the difficulties of providing detailed descriptions when customers are wearing masks.
“If someone takes anything and someone asks if you know who it was, ‘Uh, no,’ because all I can see is hair and eyes,” Barry said.
She doesn’t think masks should be mandatory in stores. If they have to be, she said, there should be rules in place where customers must first expose their face to cameras before entering a store and before putting on their mask.
RNC Const. James Cadigan said it was anticipated identification would be more challenging with the mandatory usage of indoor masks. However, he pointed out, face recognition is not the only tool officers use in tracking down criminals.
Advanced technology, such as CCTV footage and dash camera footage, not only helps investigators pick out an offender’s physical features, they can help build a timeline to follow suspects at different times and places.
He said witnesses of crime also take notice of other details and physical features other than the mouth and nose.
“In this time of COVID-19, we’re all trying to adapt to how we identify persons,” Cadigan said. “I certainly see myself looking at a person’s eyes and other identifiers more so than I ever have.
“I think when you’re making observations of persons in the course of an offence, you’re going to see those types of identifiers much more outlined by witnesses.”
Cadigan said it’s incumbent on everyone to remove barriers when entering a business, such as removing headwear and putting hoods down.
To help identify criminals, Cadigan advises the public to make an effort to take note of their other physical features — hair, eyes, height, weight — as well as clothing and accessories they may be carrying, such as a book bag or purse.
People should also try to notice a person’s demeanour, how they carry themselves, their actions and any other unique traits about them, Cadigan said.
The mask a person is wearing is also worth considering, he said, as there are many unique styles besides the blue surgical kind.
“You have to determine if this person is wearing a mask with the intent to promote health or are they wearing a mask to prevent identification,” said Cadigan, adding that people should report all suspicious activity. “These types of things are part of the investigation.”
