Anti-maskers bludgeon Trader Joe's employee in the head with a wooden paddle: police

Two men are being accused of assaulting multiple Trader Joe's employees earlier this month after they went into the grocery store and refused to wear face masks.

Vice News reports that the New York Police Department has arrested two men who allegedly went into a Trader Joe's two weeks ago at close to midnight and began physically attacking workers who asked them to wear masks while in the store.

"One of the customers ripped a mask off the face of the employee who asked them to wear masks, pummeled an employee over the head with a wooden paddle, and pulled the hair of a third worker, according to the police spokesperson," reports Vice News. "The employee who was pummeled with the wooden paddle (used by Trader Joe's cashiers to signal that they're ready to checkout a new customer), started bleeding from their head and had to go to the hospital."

One witness who was at the store also tells Vice that "the men told an employee that masks would not be necessary after the upcoming election—seeming to suggest that Donald Trump would be reelected in November."

The store itself has yet to publicly acknowledge the incident, and one unnamed employee there tells Vice that management does not want to talk about it publicly because "they didn’t want people to be afraid to come back into the store."