The COVID-19 pandemic was at its peak during the holidays last year. Cases in Iowa were on the rise, and tensions were running higher than ever as we were heading into winter and the holidays with COVID-19 as a household name. Tensions boiled over at a Vision 4 Less store in Des Moines last year when according to a Washington Post story, a customer asked a fellow patron to pull up his mask, which was apparently below the man's nose. What happened after was a very 2020 situation.

Shane Wayne Michael said, 'if you have it, you have it'

The customer that was asked to pull up his mask was 42-year old. Shane Wayne Michael. As you might imagine since this is a story about a guy going away for a decade for coughing, Michael didn't smile and tug his mask upward. The customer who asked Michael to pull up his mask was Mark Dinning.

Dinning returned to his car after shopping for eyeglasses, and that's where he was approached by Michael. According to the report, in the parking lot, Michael then pulled his mask off and coughed and spit in Dinning's face. He continued by attacking Dinning's eyes and genitals according to the report. He also bit the victim's arm as he continued to violently assault him. Michael shouted, 'if you have it, you have it' at Dinning during the assault, according to the report.

Michael gets 10-years, one of the sternest penalties for a COVID related attack

Shane Wayne Michael was convicted of willful injury causing serious injury a number of weeks ago but has now been sentenced to 10 years in prison, according to a report from the Des Moines Register, for the vicious attack which was all brought on by the mask dispute. Michael’s receiving a decade in jail is one of the sternest penalties in the country brought on by a mask-related dispute.

A less severe 30-day jail sentence was handed down to a Florida woman who coughed on a fellow patron at a home service store. In that case, there was no further violence. In Flint, Michigan last year, a security guard was fatally shot when he told a patron she and her child were required to wear a face-covering in order to enter the store.

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