Sacramento Police Called on Disabled Passenger Who's Exempt from Masks

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (RDLR) — Regional Transit's (RT) Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) department and California state capitol representatives are currently investigating daily incidents of disabled passengers with face covering exemptions, being denied transportation services from both bus and light-rail operators.

Saturday evening, an disabled student of Los Rios Community College District named Robert Rincon was heading home from 8th and I bus stop, heading towards Natomas. When Rincon boarded the bus showing his college ID to the driver for free rides, the driver told student passenger Rincon to put on an face covering.

That's when Rincon then pulled out an exemption note given to him by the Acting ADA Compliance Officer of Regional Transit District named Priscilla Vargas. In the modification letter, Vargas wrote,

"This letter is in follow up to our phone conversation yesterday requesting a reasonable modification when using Sacramento Regional Transit District (SacRT) buses and light rail trains without wearing a mask due to your disability.

Human Resources

To ensure equality and fairness, SacRT is committed to making reasonable modifications to its policies, practices, and procedures to avoid discrimination and ensure programs and services are accessible to individuals with disabilities. Based on your disability and inability to wear a mask while traveling on SacRT buses and light rail trains, you are exempt from wearing a mask.

Route, Schedule & Fare"

The unidentified black male bus operator still wouldn't allow Rincon to ride as an disabled college student though Rincon has shown the exemption note to the driver that was both written and given by RT company themselves. When Rincon decided to still sit down, that's when security were called, which delayed bus #1591 (route 11) heading to Natomas/Club Center Drive.

RT security guard named Chavas showed up and asked the disabled passenger to leave but when Chavas saw RT's exemption note, Chavas informed all passengers and drivers there was nothing he can do to the passenger and that the route would stay delayed until the passenger leaves. Then Sacramento Police Department were called to the scene.

When SAC PD arrived, they informed disabled student passenger Rincon, of three options to get home. Rather than waiting in extreme heat too long for the next bus which could cause the student to have seizures from dehydration, the student rider agreed with SAC PD to let Security Guard Chavas, drive him close to his home. Chavas said, "This is an one-time ride offer."

Rincon made it home safe, no trouble with law enforcement but plans to address this issue to State Capitol leaders, including his district representative named Kevin McCarty who's actively working on a case to fix an statewide issue of disabled people currently being denied both transportation services and jobs, who are medically exempted at all times from wearing face coverings, due to face coverings worsening medical conditions as it does to Rincon by triggering seizures more often as to seizures happening less often with no face coverings.

This was proven by Rincon's doctor on a video electroencephalogram (EEG) recording when nine seizures were captured while wearing an mask, compared to no seizures happening in the same time frame with the mask off.

According to CDC Disability Exemptions of the Order,

"The following narrow subset of persons with disabilities are exempt from CDC’s requirement to wear a mask:

• A person with a disability who, for reasons related to the disability, would be physically unable to remove a mask without assistance if breathing becomes obstructed. Examples might include a person with impaired motor skills, quadriplegia, or limb restrictions

• A person with an intellectual, developmental, cognitive, or psychiatric disability that affects the person’s ability to understand the need to remove a mask if breathing becomes obstructed"

In Rincon's case, his disability of seizures qualifies him for masks exemptions at all times under CDC exemptions as seizures are an mental and physical disability where the patient becomes unconscious, loses control of body and all five senses while also being unable to remove the mask during seizures, without the assistance of others removing the masks for the seizure patient.