#NYPD cop complains after being told to mask up

An NYPD officer taunted a straphanger who photographed him without a mask on in public — complaining that America’s “problem” was that “it’s so free,” a new video shows.

The latest spat between a cop and a member of the public over COVID-19 guidelines unfolded around 11:30 a.m. Saturday inside the 46th Street station in Astoria, Queens.

Alex Fermin told The Post Monday that it all began when he snapped a photo of the two maskless cops on their phones as he was hopping a Manhattan-bound subway.

“[The officer] yelled after me and then they followed me halfway across the platform before getting in my face,” Fermin told The Post.

Fermin’s video shows Officer Karim Powell, who isn’t wearing a mask, leering at the cellphone camera and asking, “So, what are you going to do about it?”

“What am I going to do about you not wearing a mask on the subway? I took a picture, that’s what it was,” says Fermin as he films the encounter.

Powell — who is flanked by his partner, also improperly wearing a face covering — fires back, “Go tell the city, tell the mayor, all right?”

“Make sure you tell them the machine number is 15735,” Powell adds, referring to his badge number, as Fermin reminds the officer that he is supposed to wear a mask in the subways.

“You can’t tell me when to wear my mask,” the cop says multiple times as he begins to walk away.

Powell then turns back and says to Fermin, “You know what’s the problem with you guys? It’s because America is so free.

“That’s the problem,” the Queens cop adds, before pulling up his blue disposable mask and walking away.

The NYPD recently issued updated mask guidelines that require cops to wear the coverings at all times, regardless of vaccination status, when interacting with the public. Failure to comply will result in discipline, the new policy states.

Fermin, who is one of the demonstrators involved in a lawsuit over the NYPD’s response to the George Floyd protests last year, said the encounter left him shaken but he would “100 percent document them again.”

“They were following me across the platform and I didn’t know how close they were, or if they were still following me, or if they would just arrest me from behind,” he said, adding the incident was “particularly traumatizing” because he was allegedly grabbed by cops from behind during the encounter last summer.

“It’s not like I was trying to start something. I didn’t say a word before he hollered and started following me,” Fermin added.

Since the stricter NYPD guidelines came out in response to stop the spread of the highly contagious Delta variant, top officials, including Police Commissioner Dermot Shea, have been photographed flouting the rules in public.

Face coverings have been mandatory on mass transit since the start of the pandemic, but officers have been seen without masks on numerous occasions.

A police spokesperson did not immediately respond for comment.