A Pennsylvania man wanted in the attempted shooting last Friday of a store clerk who asked him to wear a face mask allegedly opened fire with an AK-47 assault rifle when authorities showed up to arrest him during the weekend.
Adam Zaborowski, 35, was taken into custody Saturday in Slatington after being wounded multiple times in a shootout with at least seven police officers, according to The Washington Post.
He remains jailed on $1 million bail and faces 22 felony charges, including attempted murder, aggravated assault and robbery, police said.
“It was crazy,” said Tom Gallagher, who was shopping in the store at the same time, according to the Post. “It’s a mask, you know. The guy was obviously anti-mask.”
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Across the country, many other violent and sometimes-fatal confrontations have flared up over mandatory mask orders put in place by businesses to slow the spread of the coronavirus pandemic.
Police said Zaborowski was at Cigars International in Bethlehem Township last Friday morning when an employee of the store told him that he had to wear a mask.
Zaborowski immediately refused to comply, according to reports.
Witnesses said Zaborowski next pulled out a document which he claimed to be a section of state law that proved he didn’t have to wear a mask.
The clerk, however, stood by the store’s restrictions and offered to serve Zaborowski curbside, according to reports.
That’s when Zaborowski allegedly left the store with two cigars he didn’t pay for.
Outside, police said Zaborowski fired a handgun once into the air and then twice more at the clerk.
Other customers were sitting near the line of fire, according to reports.
No one was injured.
Police and state troopers descended on Zaborowski’s home the next morning to arrest him, but the suspect somehow managed to flee the scene in a truck.
When deputies caught up to him nearby, Zaborowski allegedly emerged from the vehicle and began firing a semiautomatic handgun and an AK-47.
Quickly taking cover, officers returned fire, hitting Zaborowski in the buttocks and leg, police said, according to the Post.
Zaborowski’s wounds were not considered life-threatening.
The man’s lawyer later revealed that Zaborowski had been on edge in recent days because of family and financial issues.
“He just wasn’t dealing well with the loss of his job, the loss of his child, just not handling the pandemic well,” John Waldron told the Express-Times on Sunday, according to the Post. “I think he was getting stretched too tight.”
Retail and restaurant employees have been given the unenviable task of enforcing mask policies which have become highly politicized with the presidential election just months away.
In early May, three people were charged in the shooting death of a Family Dollar security guard in Michigan who asked customers to wear masks as they entered the store.
Just days later, three employees of an Oklahoma City McDonald’s restaurant were shot after telling a 32-year-old female customer that the dining room was closed as a pandemic precaution and that she wouldn’t be able to eat there.
»FROM MAY: 3 McDonald’s employees expected to survive after customer opened fire
In early July, two men got into a brawl with Trader Joe’s employees for not wearing face masks inside the store.
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