Undercover Cops Trick 2 Women, Arrest Them over Beauty Services During COVID Lockdown
In times of unprecedented national crisis, it’s good to know that our law enforcement officers have their priorities straight.
In a profoundly inefficacious act of tin-eared strong-arming, undercover cops in Laredo, Texas, have tricked two women into providing cosmetic services during the coronavirus lockdown and then arrested them.
In an act that has singlehandedly stopped a multitude of people from dying painful deaths (and in case you’re one of those people who really thought the president wanted Americans to mainline disinfectants to prevent COVID-19, I’m sure this just made your day) police took Ana Isabel Castro-Garcia and Brenda Stephanie Mata into custody because (gasp!) they offered beautician services during the lockdown, according to the Laredo Morning Times.
“Both of the violators independently solicited customers via social media. On both cases, an undercover officer working on the COVID-19 task force enforcement detail made contact with each solicitor to set up an appointment for a cosmetic, beauty service that is prohibited under the emergency ordinance,” police said in a statement, the Morning Times reported.
The arrests were reported April 20. They were based on tips the department received on April 15, according to KGNS.
The two were reported via an app run by the Laredo Police Department. I forget whoever said that anyone who reports another person for minor lockdown violations should heretofore be known as “Karen,” but I don’t think it was a bad piece of advice.
So anyway, after some Karens demanded to speak to the manager (or sergeant), the Laredo Police Department leaped into action and lured the two of them into situations that would lead to their arrest.
In the first, 31-year-old Ana Isabel Castro-Garcia was arrested after an undercover officer pretended to be in the market for some nail service
“Castro-Garcia admitted to running a nail salon inside her residence and promoting the business on social media, going against the mayoral decree currently in place,” the police said.
Then 20-year-old Brenda Stephanie Mata was contacted and told a police officer she would do an eyelash service inside her residence. You know the drill.
So, something that should have ended with a citation, right? Of course not.
“Castro-Garcia and Mata were each charged with violation of an emergency management plan, a Class B misdemeanor that carries a punishment of up to 180 days in jail, a $2,000 fine or both,” the Morning Times reported.
“We remind the community that there is an emergency management plan in place in order to control the spread of the novel COVID-19 virus. Laredo police officers continue to address violations of the order with enforcement,” a statement from the department said.
Regular readers of this publication — and, indeed, of my own writing — will know I’m generally willing to give police officers the benefit of the doubt. That being said, I wonder if there was anyone involved in crafting any part of this operation and the fallout from it that was slightly concerned about how bad it would look.
At the very least, did they not think this was maybe a bit heavy-handed? Yes, police officers have jobs on the front line in which their lives are on the line every day.
You know what they also have? Jobs. That’s something people in the cosmetics business don’t have — among tens of millions of Americans — because of coronavirus lockdowns.
And the job the cops did on these two women was questionable — at best.
What they did was use taxpayer dollars to trick two people providing services currently deemed illegal. What they did ensured these individuals had their pictures published by their local newspapers. And the women are facing a hefty fine each.
This was a violation that, at the very most, deserved a warning or a citation. Instead, these police officers turned out to be a bunch of insufferable Karens, too. This was a silly waste of taxpayer resources that made no one safer.
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