Beverly Hills mandates face coverings, even on neighborhood strolls, during COVID-19 pandemic
LOS ANGELES — The city of Beverly Hills issued an order Thursday that requires all people, including essential workers, to wear face coverings when they leave their homes, including for walks through the neighborhood.
The order, which goes into effect at 6 p.m. Friday, requires residents to wear a scarf, bandanna or other cloth over their faces in hopes of slowing the spread of the novel coronavirus. Like other city leaders, Beverly Hills officials are encouraging residents to leave medical-grade masks for health and emergency workers. At last count, the city had 71 confirmed cases of COVID-19.
“We believe this action will help to protect and ultimately save lives,” Mayor Lester Friedman said in a news release. “While we continue to ask our community members to remain at home, those who do go outside and the people they encounter will be safer.”
Under the order, drivers traveling alone or with members of their households do not need to wear face coverings unless they lower their vehicle’s windows for any reason, including to interact with first responders, food service workers or others who are not members of their household.
An increasing number of cities in California and across the U.S. are ordering residents to wear face coverings.
Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti announced the city’s face-covering order Tuesday. Unlike Beverly Hills, the L.A. mandate doesn’t require residents to wear face coverings when alone outside.
—Los Angeles Times
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Coronavirus causing mail to be delivered every other day in some metro Detroit areas
DETROIT — Residents in parts of southeast Michigan will have to wait a little longer for their mail to arrive.
The United States Postal Service said some customers in metro Detroit area are receiving mail every other day as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Some Detroit District customers are receiving mail every other day as compared to the normal daily delivery as we match the workload created by the impacts of the ongoing Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic,” USPS strategic communications specialist Elizabeth Najduch said. “We appreciate the patience of our customers and the efforts of our employees as conditions change on a day-to-day basis.”
Mail delays due to an apparent lack of mail carriers have been reported in Detroit, Farmington Hills, Jackson, and cities in Oakland and Macomb counties. USPS could not offer a timetable on when mail service will be fully restored.
Post offices are also feeling the effects of the coronavirus. At the main post office in downtown Detroit on Fort, there was one postal worker helping customers at the front counter and another scrambling for packages in the back. The line was out the door, with each customer spread 6-feet apart, following the recommended guidelines. One of the postal workers said the main branch was working with 50% of its staff.
“The only thing we can do is wait,” said Nathan Freeman of Detroit, who visited the post office to mail off two packages. “Postal workers are needed every day and I understand if some of them can’t or don’t want to work during this pandemic. It’s a dangerous job.”
Nationwide, USPS has had close to 400 workers test positive for coronavirus.
—Detroit Free Press
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After his gun went off on Chicago L train, guard tossed it and claimed girl shot him, police say
CHICAGO — A security guard whose gun went off during a scuffle on a CTA train, wounding himself and a 16-year-old girl, threw his weapon in a trash can afterward and told police that the teen had shot him and run off, according to law enforcement sources.
The guard, Eric Camp, 38, mentioned nothing to officers about the girl also being wounded, and he admitted what actually happened only after police found his gun, the sources said. He was charged with two counts of aggravated unlawful use of a weapon, but not with giving false information to police.
The girl was charged as a juvenile with aggravated battery to a transit worker, robbery and aggravated battery in a public place. Police did not explain the charges, but a police report says she kicked and punched Camp and his partner before a gun in Camp’s jacket pocket went off.
Camp and the partner have been placed on leave from Digby’s Detective & Security Agency, which was hired by the CTA in August to patrol trains and stations. The company could not be reached for comment Friday.
The guards were on a Red Line train around 4 a.m. Thursday when police say they noticed the girl panhandling and approached her as the train neared the Belmont station. During a scuffle, “the firearm that Camp had concealed in the front pouch of his jacket discharged unintentionally,” according to a police report.
Camp was wounded in the left thigh and the girl was grazed in the abdomen.
Moments later, the guards flagged down a police car while running down a street about a block from the station, according to police reports. They told the officers they were chasing a girl who had shot Camp. Around this time, a dispatcher radioed the officers, telling them that a caller reported Camp was shot with his own gun.
The officers patted down Camp and his partner but didn’t find a gun. Camp finally said he had thrown his gun into a trash can down the block, according to the police reports. Officers found the gun with one empty shell casing in the chamber and a loaded magazine.
Both the girl and Camp were treated at Illinois Masonic Hospital and released.
—Chicago Tribune
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