Wearing masks while on duty

Why aren’t police officers wearing masks when they are on duty in the community, i.e., Weekends on Main street?

Littleton Police Chief Doug StephensChief Douglas Stephens: It’s a challenge to… It’s like herding cats a little bit. I can tell you that, as a chief of police and as a parent of two kids as well. But there’s some certain situations where officers can’t wear masks. I mean, obviously if there’s a situation that would jeopardize safety or anything like that. Obviously, Weekends on Main is not one of those. The officers should be wearing masks. We continually remind them to wear masks. I believe that part of the problem is, and it’s a realistic situation, where officers are out there. Anybody’s been in Weekends on Main, it’s a wonderful event. But it’s kind of hot sometimes. So, our personnel wearing their solar panel blue uniforms with the body armor and all the equipment’s in the heat and being out there for seven or eight hours, they are not out there just for dinner. They’re out there for a full shift. Sometimes they get pretty hot. So if they’ve maintained six-feet distance, they’re probably okay in removing their masks. But in general, we’d like them to wear those masks, and they’re reminded of that constantly.