A drunk woman has been charged with committing a terrorist hoax after she was filmed coughing on a police officer who warned her about social distancing rules.
According to a recent report by NBC 15 News, police officers from the town of Ponca in the state of Oklahoma were summoned to the home of Cecilia Flores after receiving complaints about her drunk and disorderly conduct on April 2.
Take a look at this news report on the incident in the video below:Police attempted to resolve the dispute, but Flores quickly became aggressive and confrontational after she attempted to shake the officer's hand. Bearing in mind the strict social distancing rules in place during the pandemic, the officer refused to shake her hand and explained to her that it would be irresponsible to do so.
She then coughed hard into the officer's face, stating: "I got it, what’s up?" The officers were stunned into speechlessness by Flores' vulgar act, and questioned her further about whether she had indeed tested positive.
Although Flores then denied having the disease, the officers arrested her and later charged her with perpetrating a domestic terrorist hoax.
Recently, an 18-year-old who threatened to infect other shoppers with the virus was arrested under the same charges:Commenting on the incident in a later interview with KFOR, Ponca City Police Captain Randy Tyner said: "There was an intoxicated female that was trying to get in a vehicle and leave ... It’s this threat of spreading this highly contagious virus, and it could affect a large number of people. We have to take that seriously."
At the time of writing, there have now been 2,261,631 confirmed cases of COVID-19 across 114 countries worldwide, and a total of 154,789 deaths, according to the John Hopkins University Coronavirus Resource Center. Of these, 189,753 infectees have been American, and 37,079 people have died.
