Life imitates art, as members of Seattle's police department have taken to wearing yellow face coverings not unlike those worn by the Tulsa police in HBO's Watchmen.Journalist Ryan Parker tweeted a screenshot of an MSNBC report showing members of Seattle's police force wearing yellow scarves partially covering their faces. Next to the photo is a still from Watchmen, which shows Tulsa's fictitious police force wearing noticeably similar face coverings.
In a subsequent tweet, Parker added a statement from the Seattle police. "They wore the yellow coverings so that they could easily identify their squad mates in a crowd," the statement reads. "Different squads use different signifiers so that different squads/officers can identify each other in a crowd."
As the world is still in the midst of the global coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, the masks also presumably help protect against the virus. The reasons for the coverings in Watchmen, though, were altogether different, instead serving to protect the identities of police officers. In the series, members of the Tulsa Police Department were being targeted by the white supremacist group The Seventh Kalvary.
Seattle police acting on mayoral orders were moving into the city's so-called CHOP zone Wednesday, clearing the area of protesters who had been occupying it for the past three weeks.
Developed by Damon Lindelof, HBO's Watchmen stars Jeremy Irons, Regina King, Don Johnson, Tim Blake Nelson, Jean Smart, Louis Gossett Jr., Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Tom Mison, James Wolk, Adelaide Clemens, Andrew Howard, Frances Fisher, Jacob Ming-Trent, Sara Vickers, Dylan Schombing, Lily Rose Smith and Adelynn Spoon.
