Modesto’s controversial ban on masks at protests is the subject of a new lawsuit filed March 25 by the American Civil Liberties Union against City Hall.
The city’s ban on face coverings and other objects violates peoples’ First Amendment rights and is needlessly vague, the lawsuit says.
The suit claims the local ordinance is “absurd” for requiring that police officers pick and choose which crowd members might be violating the local law and which might be using masks for medical or religious reasons or merely wearing costumes. The ban also makes journalists less safe by banning protective gear routinely used by reporters covering protests in other cities, according to the lawsuit.
Modesto City Council members enacted the mask ban in 2019 to give police more anti-violence tools when patrolling assemblies with the Proud Boys, Antifa or other groups.
But police never used the ordinance until arresting five residents June 14 last year at an ICE Out protest attended by many people of color. A second much larger No Kings protest attended largely by whites the same day produced no arrests, the lawsuit notes.
Only two other California cities (Oakland and Lomita) have similar ordinances but they haven’t resulted in arrests. Criminal charges against those arrested in Modesto were dropped before their first court appearances.
People at City Council meetings have demanded a repeal 135 times since June, according to a Modesto Focus analysis. The council asked its Community Police Review Board to weigh in, and that panel recommended repeal.
But council members on Dec. 2 decided to keep the ordinance despite the ACLU’s warning that it would sue, which happened March 25.
More No Kings protests are planned in Modesto for this weekend, at 11 a.m. at Graceada Park Saturday March 28.
Garth Stapley is the accountability reporter for The Modesto Focus, a project of the nonprofit Central Valley Journalism Collaborative. Contact him at garth@themodestofocus.org.