On May 13, five New York City police officers wrestled a 22-year-old mother to the ground in a Brooklyn subway station and arrested her in front of her young child for refusing to wear a mask. Like two-thirds of New Yorkers arrested for not wearing a mask during the COVID-19 pandemic, the woman was Black.

Less than a month later, New York cops themselves are overwhelmingly going without masks at protests against police brutality and racism so much so that Mayor Bill de Blasio, widely criticized for defending the New York Police Departments violence against demonstrators, pleaded with officers to follow the rules.

Its just a human decency thing, the mayor said on Sunday.

Yet masks remain optional for officers in the field. In that, the NYPD is not alone. Across the country, police departments have left it up to individual officers to decide if they will wear a mask while dealing with the public. A HuffPost analysis of hundreds of videos and photos posted over the past two weeks of the protests sparked by the death of George Floyd, the Minneapolis man whom officers asphyxiated on camera last month, found that the majority of police working the demonstrations do not appear to be wearing protective masks.

A survey of police departments in the countrys 20 most-populous cities found loose guidelines and zero measures to penalize officers who fail to cover their mouth and nose a basic step that the World Health Organization and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have recommended to curb the spread of the coronavirus.

There are many reasons someone may opt against wearing a mask, even if it puts the individual and their loved ones at home at risk. Some may doubt the seriousness of the COVID-19 threat. Others may be relying on experts guidance that there is a lower risk of transmission outdoors. More still may find cloth masks that fully cover the mouth and nose uncomfortable as the summer heats up.