A Brooklyn couple were removed from a New York ferry in handcuffs on Saturday evening after refusing to wear a face mask or leave the boat.
The husband and wife were returning to Bay Ridge after an evening in Manhattan via an NYC Ferry, when the captain ordered them to wear a face covering in compliance with city regulations.
The middle-aged couple refused to do so, stating they had a constitutional right to board the ferry without a face covering, and that they both suffered from an undisclosed medical condition.
For more than an hour, the middle-aged couple refused to leave the ferry, despite repeated orders from the captain to disembark at Brooklyn Bridge Park around 8pm.
Police officers arrived on the scene around 45 minutes after the standoff began.
The man, known only as David, told officers that the captain had unfairly singled the couple out, Gothamist reported.
According to the report, the man alleged: “He’s shaming us. Because we can’t wear a mask, we’re being discriminated against."
His wife added that they had been singled out because they were white, according to the report, saying, “If we were f**king black, I can guarantee you that guy would never come out and tell us to put a mask on.”
The man then said “Right, because Black Lives Matter” according to the report.
When asked, the couple reportedly refused to provide further information or evidence of the medical condition they claimed prevented them from complying with local restrictions.
Footage of the incident showed that other passengers on the boat were becoming impatient, with calls for the couple to leave so other people could travel to their destination. “Take them off the boat, we got to go home,” cried one man.
After giving the couple one last chance to voluntarily disembark the vessel, the officers handcuffed the pair and removed them from the ferry.
Other passengers thanked the officers for removing the couple and praised the captain for his handling of the situation.
“I'm just so fed up, this has been going on since March, and my husband is f**king p*ssed off,” the woman told a reporter on the scene.
“Every time I have to commute to Manhattan it's a f**king process,” she remarked.
She added that the couple were also suing the city’s transport service, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) following a similar altercation on a city bus. She said that they intended to bring a lawsuit against the ferry company.
The New York Police Department (NYPD) confirmed that the pair were each issued with a summons for disorderly conduct.
The Independent has contacted the NYPD for additional comment.
