‘We Don’t Enforce Mandates, We Protect Rights’
After the employer of a Boston pizzeria allowed five unvaccinated women and a girl to order food and bottles of water, the store manager intervened and called the police on the group for not presenting proof of Covid vaccination.
In footage recorded by the women and streamed on Facebook Live, the shop owner asks police to remove the group of females from his restaurant for failing to comply with Boston’s newly implemented mandate requiring proof of vaccination to enter all indoor venues.
But the women stood their ground, continued to drink bottles of water and eat the pizza they purchased while being harassed and gawked at by the cops and store manager in the nearly hour-long encounter.
One of the women, Shana Cottone, a Boston police Sergeant who was placed on leave and relieved of her badge on Jan. 8 over her criticism of the city’s mandate, shamed the officers for choosing money over human rights.
The recently suspended sergeant and leader of Boston First Responders United, a group that organized in opposition to the vaccine mandate, implored her former colleagues “to do the right thing.”
Cottone demanded the name and badge number of each officer, vowing to sue them each individually if they persisted to eject her, the young girl and the other four women from the restaurant.
After speaking with the shop owner, Office Arigonas warns the women, “I am a police officer and I got called. I am here to talk to you.”
“About what?” Cottone fires back.
“The manager of the establishment says you guys won’t show your vaccination cards,” Arigonas said.
“That’s crap. We don’t show papers,” Cottone maintains.
“Okay, guess what? It’s a private establishment and that’s what they want. They want to see it. It’s mandated by the city and if you guys don’t want to show that, you guys can’t sit down. You can do take-out.”
The officers insist the women leave for failing to provide vaccination proof, but the women don’t budge and remain seated.
“No. You need to leave,” Cottone argues. “Listen. You better watch what you’re doing because you are walking a very thin line right now. The police are not to be enforcing this mandate. You can take yourself and you can leave.”
“I am not doing anything,” Arigonas replies.
“You are. You are violating our rights,” the former sergeant chided.
As Cottone stands up to walk to the restroom, the store owner and police officer proceed to follow her.
“Imagine on Martin Luther King Day, brother, discriminating against other black people,” a woman recording the exchange laments. “You turn your back on your own people. You’re a nazi.”
As the officers continue to awkwardly surveil the women, they maintain they are doing their job.
“That’s the problem! So, we’re the nazis!” one of the women snaps back. “You decide what part of history you want to be on.”
“They did the same shit to Rosa Parks, so, we’ll park our butts right on the bus,” another woman proclaims.
Cottone returns to the table, warning her former colleagues, “If you are not going to stand by your oath, you shouldn’t be on this job. I am enjoying this product that I purchased here, and you’re going to leave me in peace and you’re going to sue you each individually.
The sergeant reminds the officers that she was put on leave for protesting Covid tyranny while another officer, Gino, chose to resign rather than trample on civil rights:
Violating people’s rights is not how policing is done. We protect people’s rights. We don’t enforce mandates, we protect rights. Anthony, don’t walk away from me because you know you’re doing the wrong thing. You can stand up against it, okay? Gino Fernandez, my classmate, fourteen years, resigned yesterday. He gave his gun and his badge away. They took my gun and my badge a week and a half ago. Gino gave his back yesterday because he is not going to participate in a corrupt system. You guys can do that too, but you’re bribed my money. You’ve been corrupted by money.”Money will never make you righteous.
This is wrong guys. You don’t have to do it.” Take your hands out of your vest. That’s not tactically safe, okay?
“This is the second time today we have been denied service and had the police called on us because we won’t show our papers,” one of the women explained, adding, “Happy Martin Luther King Day.”
Days prior to the showdown with her former colleagues in the pizzeria, Cottone and a small group of demonstrators protested in front of Mayor Wu’s Roslindale home with bullhorns at 7 am.
“Who is the government to tell me I’m not entitled to die?” Cottone told the Boston Globe during the protest.
Boston began implementing Mayor Michelle Wu’s citywide vaccine passport mandate on Jan. 15, requiring proof of vaccination for individuals ages 12 and up when entering indoor spaces.
The mandate requires presenting a Center For Disease Control card, a digital image of a CDC card, an image of an official immunization record of at least one dose of a Covid shot or any City of Boston app proving receipt of at least one dose of a Covid vaccine to enter indoor dining, gyms, bars, nightclubs and entertainment venues. On Feb. 15, the Democrat mayor is demanding proof everyone prove they have received 2 Covid vaccine doses to enter any indoor venue.
Celebrities, performing artists and professional athletes who are not regularly employed by a venue are exempt from the mandate.
Mayor Wu calls the fascistic policy “B Together.”
“The best way for Boston to stay healthy and support our communities, our businesses, and cultural institutions is for more people to get vaccinated. The B Together policy helps us do that,” the city’s website states.
