Holly MatkinDearborn, MI – A Michigan woman who wore a black face mask plastered with a sharp-toothed smile into a bank was outraged when a teller locked the building down and called police.
When Amanda Ulmen waltzed into the KeyBank on North Telegraph Road wearing her mask on Monday, a teller immediately asked her to remove it, Ulman told WAGA.
Ulman refused to comply.
“They kept saying that it was for their protection,” she complained to WAGA. “And I don’t understand what my mask has to do with their protection.”
The teller then began enacting emergency protocols.
“She jumps on the phone after she pushes this button – which I assume is the panic button – and I hear this giant locking sound,” Ulmen told WAGA.
No one at the bank ever said anything about feeling intimidated or scared by her mask while they were waiting for police to arrive, she said.
“Nothing about the design, absolutely nothing about freaking them out [or] anything,” Ulmen said.
She told WAGA that she has a compromised immune system, so she wore the mask to avoid contracting coronavirus.
“I do [get sick] every year. I do catch – if it’s influenza A, B, strep throat – when I heard everything about the coronavirus it scared me,” she said.
But it wasn’t the first time that Ulmen was made aware of the bank’s policy about masks.
Just last month, her 10-year-old son was sick, so she had him wear a mask while they were running to the bank, Ulmen told WAGA.
She said the teller refused to help them unless her son removed his mask or left the building, and that she had to take him out to the car to wait for her while she went back inside.
When police arrived on Monday, Ulmen explained why she was wearing the mask, and she was ultimately allowed to leave.
She claimed that the tellers should know her because she has been banking there for five years, and that she is so upset by how they treated her that she will be closing her account.
“KeyBank cannot get away with treating customers this way. You can’t lock your customers in a bank,” she railed to WAGA. “All I want to do is protect myself with the mask and I’m a criminal. I was scared and traumatized.”
KeyBank said that the teller followed policy by asking Ulmen to remove her mask.
“We regret any inconvenience caused, but it is bank policy to request brief removal of anything blocking the face for the safety of our employees and clients,” the bank told WAGA in a statement.