Bank Manager: Customer 'Ambushed' Me Over Mask

Hispanic Army vet says customer at Wells Fargo hurled racial slur, beat him in parking lot
By Jenn Gidman,  Newser Staff
Posted Sep 13, 2021 11:50 AM CDT
Bank Manager: Customer Beat Me Over Mask Request
In this file photo, a Wells Fargo sign is displayed at a branch in New York.   (AP Photo/CX Matiash, File)

The heated climate over mask mandates kicked up a notch at a Wells Fargo branch earlier this month, when a California bank manager says he was ambushed and beaten by a customer who didn't want to comply with the bank's mask rules. The bank manager, IDed only as "A," tells the San Luis Obispo Tribune that the Sept. 3 incident began when the 40-something customer entered the Grover Beach bank sans face covering, and A asked him to don a mask. The customer "responded aggressively," A says, noting that he then offered the customer one of the bank's masks. That seemed to tick off the customer even more, A says, adding that the customer called him a f---in' sp---," and said, "I better not catch you outside."

The man left, but A says the customer attacked him in the parking lot hours later when A's shift ended. A's wife tells the paper that her husband ended up in the ER with a concussion and scratches to his head, face, and hands. "It's crazy," A says. "The guy went home, he plotted, he laid in wait, he ambushed me." Police say they're investigating the incident as battery and a possible hate crime. This isn't the first such incident of over-the-top mask pushback. Newsweek notes another recent case from August, when a man who was asked by workers at a Canadian Dairy Queen to wear a mask was caught on video urinating in front of them in response. (More face masks stories.)

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