Northern California sheriff exempts deputies from mask order, citing risk to officers

A Northern California sheriff’s office has made face masks optional for most deputies countywide, according to a June 23 memo obtained by The Sacramento Bee.

Tehama County Sheriff Dave Hencratt wrote in the memo that face masks could jeopardize officer safety and cause “extreme peril” for officers in the line of duty.

They could fog up glasses, he wrote. They could keep wearers from tasting or smelling chemicals, he warned. If they’re worn for a long time, Hencratt wrote that face masks could cause “anxiety” and “claustrophobic reactions” among deputies.

He also wrote that masks could interfere with an officer’s “command presence.”

“The Tehama County Sheriff’s Office declares that wearing a Face Covering/Mask while on duty is an issue of Officer Safety and may jeopardize the physical safety of its Sheriff’s Deputies,” he wrote. “These risks are much more imminent and by far outweigh the risk of exposure or transmission of almost any airborne pathogen.”

Sheriff’s deputies must wear masks in the Tehama County courthouse, the memo states.

The Tehama County Sheriff’s Office did not respond to several requests for comment on the policy.

Tehama County counts 95 total coronavirus cases and one death since the beginning of the pandemic — among the lowest numbers in the state. However, 57 of those cases have been reported in the past two weeks, according to state data.

Hencratt’s memo echoes criticism other sheriffs expressed of Newsom’s coronavirus-related orders. At different times, sheriffs from Fresno, Humboldt and Merced counties said they would not enforce the March order Newsom handed down directing Calfironians to stay at home.

Some sheriffs have also said they would not enforce the statewide mask order, but deputies largely have been wearing masks in public.

A spokeswoman for the California State Sheriffs’ Association said she doesn’t know of any other counties with similar policies.

Stanford Law Professor David Sklansky, a criminal justice expert and former prosecutor, wrote in an email that even though there are times when it doesn’t make sense for law enforcement officers to wear masks, the Tehama County memo seems hard to defend.

“When public health authorities are urging everyone to wear masks when they can’t practice social distancing, it seems irresponsible to encourage law enforcement officers to ignore that guidance,” he wrote.

Michael Mink, chairman of Sacramento State’s Department of Public Health, wrote that he could see the basis for some of Sheriff Hencratt’s points, like the fogging of glasses and impaired breathing.

But the sheriff’s guidelines don’t go far enough to demonstrate the benefits of wearing face masks, he wrote in an email.

Mink also found that Hencratt’s claim about comparing the risks of harm from mask-wearing to the risks of catching the coronavirus goes directly against public health guidance.

“Leaving the use of masks to individual choice, without any direction, encouragement, or guidance, fails to provide adequate protection for law enforcement officers and the public,” Mink wrote.

Newsom told reporters on Monday that the state is prepared to step in where counties fail to enforce public health orders, such as his statewide mandatory mask order.

While Newsom said that enforcement is “best left to local,” to the extent where local officials such as sheriffs are unable or unwilling to provide enforcement, “then we will step up our enforcement at the state level in a more targeted way.”

The governor pointed to $2.5 billion in emergency funds for counties that the state is using as leverage to coax recalcitrant counties into complying with his orders.

“If they’re simply unwilling to do it, then we will redirect those dollars to communities that are,” Newsom said. “If that’s not an incentive enough, or rather disincentive enough, then we will assume more responsibility still.”