Deschutes County District Attorney John Hummel will not charge organizers of a gathering last month protesting the governor’s public health mandates.

Around noon Nov. 21, several people called police to report protesters were standing on a downtown Bend street corner without masks, in apparent violation of Gov. Kate Brown’s COVID-19 order to wear them.

Bend Police officers contacted the event organizer, Tommy Szymanski, through a Facebook event page. He reportedly told them he thinks the governor’s order is unconstitutional and he doesn’t think masks are effective.

Police made no arrests and forwarded the incident report to Hummel, who announced Tuesday he would not press charges.

“The organizer of this event is incorrect: The Governor’s mask mandate is constitutionally sound,” Hummel said in a prepared statement. “However, if the mandate is applied to situations in which the public gathers to exercise a constitutional right (in this case, to assemble to redress their government), it would create a conflict between the lawful mask law and the constitutional right that is being exercised.”

Hummel said he favors protecting constitutional rights over the enforcement of statutory violations so long as parties remain nonviolent.

“I encourage people to wear masks and maintain social distance so we can save lives, save businesses and save parent’s sanity by getting kids back to school,” he said.

Szymanski, 37, said Tuesday that he’d never been to a protest before he began organizing last month’s event. He took issue with Hummel characterizing it as an “anti-mask protest,” because he’s opposed to other aspects of the governor’s response to COVID-19, which he said has been more damaging than the disease itself.

“That’s just trying to pigeonhole people into a narrative that isn’t accurate,” said Szymanski, who runs a marketing business in Bend with his wife. “Really what it comes down to is we are protesting government overreach right now. Do masks fall under that? Yeah, but that’s only one of many components.”

Szymanski said he believes the danger of COVID-19 has been inflated by the media and more focus should have gone to protecting vulnerable populations, rather than sweeping mandates that affect everyone.

“What it comes down to is, we’re out there to say hey, the government doesn’t get to control everything that everyone does,” he said.

He said the protest will recur weekly.