Seattle Police’s New Face Masks Eerily Mirror Those in ‘Watchmen’

Police in Seattle have adopted yellow masks to guard officers from catching COVID-19 that eerily mirror those worn by the police in HBO’s prescient hit show Watchmen.

HBO’s ‘Watchmen’ and Seattle police today: pic.twitter.com/3wGPyZwqfo

— Ryan Parker (@TheRyanParker) July 1, 2020

The masks are are worn for very different reasons. In the series, the masks are worn by the Tulsa police department to guard the officer’s identities from retaliation by criminals, and in real life the masks are worn to prevent the officers from transmitting or being infected by the deadly coronavirus pandemic sweeping the globe.

The Hollywood Reporter‘s 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.”