California woman licks items worth $1,800 inside grocery store amid coronavirus pandemic, gets arrested
SOUTH LAKE TAHOE, CALIFORNIA: A California woman has been arrested and charged after she licked and ruined around $1,800 worth of groceries near the Nevada border, police have said.
The incident had come to light after South Lake Tahoe Police officers responded to a Safeway on Johnson Lane on April 7 after receiving reports that a customer was "licking" groceries inside the store, according to a press release.
When officers arrived on the scene, a Safeway employee informed them that the suspect had put numerous pieces of jewelry from the store on her hands and started licking them.
Then, she reportedly started to load her shopping cart with merchandise from the store, with the employee informing the officers that all the items in her cart had to be deemed unsellable due to cross-contamination.
Officers located the suspect, identified as Jennifer Walker, a 53-year-old South Lake Tahoe resident, inside the store with a cart full of merchandise.
An investigation revealed she had no means to purchase any of the items, which included costume jewelry, meat, and liquor and were valued at approximately $1,800.
Walker was subsequently booked into the El Dorado County jail on suspicion of felony vandalism. She is currently being held on a $10,000 bond.
While the 53-year-old has no prior arrest record, South Lake Tahoe police Lt. Shannon Laney told NBC News that "we've had local contact with her, we're familiar with her." She refused to divulge the nature of their previous dealings with her.
The incident is not the first of its kind reported following the outbreak of the novel coronavirus in the country.
MEA WorldWide (MEAWW) previously reported how a Pennsylvania grocery store had been forced to throw away $35,000 worth of goods after a woman intentionally coughed on all of it.
The store's owner, Joe Fasula, said that the woman, Margaret Cirko, visited a Hanover Township branch of grocery chain Gerrity’s Supermarket and coughed on fresh produce, bakery items, meat case, as well as general grocery items.
Cirko was eventually caught and charged with felony counts of terrorist threats, threats to use a "biological agent", and criminal mischief.
A similar fate had awaited a Missouri man who filmed himself licking a shelf of toiletry items at a Walmart in Warrenton. Cody Pfister, 26, had posted a video on Twitter that showed him running his tongue on several items as he looked directly at the camera.
"Who's scared of coronavirus?" he taunted viewers in the short clip, which was viewed over four million times. "I'm a nasty moths f*****," he added.
After the video went viral, Warrenton police received tips from people in the Netherlands, Ireland, and the United Kingdom, and promptly arrested Pfister before charging him with making a terrorist threat in the second degree.
In another such incident, a group of teenagers had filmed themselves coughing on fresh produce and patrons at a Virginia grocery store as part of a "disturbing trend" that has been making the rounds on social media.