People just can’t seem to stop being gross during the coronavirus pandemic.
Now a woman in Northern California has been arrested for allegedly licking about $1,800 worth of items – including jewelry and groceries – at a South Lake Tahoe Safeway, Fox News reported. The Los Angeles Times reported that employees called police after watching the woman pick up “numerous pieces of jewelry” and then licking them and loading her cart with nearly $1,800 worth of merchandise. The outlet reported that one employee told police that the merchandise in her cart was “deemed unsellable due to the cross contamination.”
The woman, 53-year-old Jennifer Walker, was arrested for felony vandalism. Officers determined she was not even able to pay for the items that she placed in her cart. She was booked into the El Dorado County Jail. Bail was set at $10,000, South Tahoe Now reported.
As The Daily Wire previously reported, numerous other people have been arrested for similar behavior in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, which has killed nearly 90,000 people worldwide.
A Fort Worth, Texas man was arrested after spitting and coughing at a woman at a laundromat while claiming to have the coronavirus. The Fort Worth Police Department explained what happened:
On Monday, 04/06/2020, the Fort Worth Police Department was called to the 5800 block of South Hulen Street at a local laundromat in reference to a suspect intentionally coughing on people and claiming to have COVID-19. The victim confronted the suspect, who was sleeping on the property, and asked him to leave. The suspect became irate and coughed in the victim’s face while stating that he had COVID-19. The victim said that the suspect then spat in her face and began attempting to cough on others before fleeing on foot.
Officers located the suspect, Jeffrey Smith, nearby and placed him in custody; he was transported to a local hospital as a precaution. He is charged with Terroristic Threat, which is a class B misdemeanor. The seriousness of the current COVID-19 crisis cannot be understated and any threat of using the virus, whether infected or not, will be vigorously investigated and appropriate law enforcement action will be taken.
Prior to that, a Mexican government health official, Dr. Daniel López Regalado, visited a hospital and tested positive for COVID-19. Because he didn’t get special treatment, he reportedly coughed and spit on hospital staff. He has since been fired and charged with risk of infection.
Recently, 26-year-old Cody Lee Pfister was arrested for making a terrorist threat after he filmed himself licking deodorant sticks at a Missouri Walmart, asking viewers, “Who’s scared of coronavirus?”
“Pfister ‘knowingly caused a false belief or fear that a condition involving danger to life existed,’ court documents state, adding that he acted ‘with reckless disregard of the risk causing the evacuation, quarantine or closure of any portion’ of Walmart,” the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported at the time.
There was also the social media influencer known as “Larz,” who filmed himself licking a public toilet bowl and later reporting he had contracted the coronavirus. In New Jersey, a man is facing charges after claiming he had the coronavirus and coughing on a Wegmans employee.