Walmart will require all customers to wear masks after incidents in which one anti-mask shopper drove into police and another pulled a gun on other customers

• On Wednesday, Walmart announced it would require shoppers to wear masks at stores nationwide after a spate of mask-related violent incidents at its store.
• The most recent incident happened on Tuesday evening, when a Louisiana customer hit a police officer with his car after telling the officer "You can't make me wear a f---ing mask."
• After Walmart announced its mask policy, many other retailers including Kroger, Kohl's, and now CVS followed suit.
• Even with mask policies are in place, retailers may still struggle with enforcing them and keeping employees safe.

On Wednesday, Walmart announced an official policy requiring shoppers to wear masks after a spate of violent disputes over masks at its stores.

A Louisiana man was arrested on Tuesday evening for assaulting a police officer with a motor vehicle after being asked to leave Walmart, according to an arrest report.

"You can't make me wear a f---ing mask," Taylor said to the officer, Fox 59 reported. As the officer was taking Taylor's license plate number, Taylor backed his car into the officer twice. Taylor later told police that he was unable to wear a mask because of a medical condition and that he didn't see the officer behind him.

And on July 11, a shopper at a Walmart in South Florida pulled a gun on another shopper after a dispute over masks, the Sun-Sentinal reported.

Walmart's policy doesn't go into effect until July 20, but the chain has already set a trend for other retailers. After Walmart announced its masks policy, Kohl's, Kroger, and CVS announced their own and the National Retail Federation called on retailers to set their own mask policies instead of waiting for state or federal governments to do so.

"Workers serving customers should not have to make a critical decision as to whether they should risk exposure to infection or lose their jobs because a minority of people refuse to wear masks in order to help stop the spread of the deadly coronavirus," the NRF statement reads.

Mask policies don't necessarily prevent conflict at stores. Costco, which was the first major retailer to require shoppers to wear masks, continues to wrangle unruly or violent customers that refuse to follow its policy. As retailers attempt to enforce new mask-wearing policies, they will likely face backlash and sometimes violence from customers who refuse to wear masks. The onus of the responsibility and the risk will fall onto employees, who often are under-trained for hostile and violent situations.

While mask policies don't necessarily protect employees from violence, they do protect corporations from being sued by customers. Having a clearly stated policy on masks puts retailers on stronger footing when calling law enforcement in response to an incident or in the case of a lawsuit by a customer who refuses to wear a mask.

Are you a retail worker who has seen or experienced harassment or violence from a customer because of a mask-related conflict? Please reach out to us at retail@businessinsider.com.