Missouri man who licked toiletries at Walmart in coronavirus prank charged with making 'terrorist threat'
WARRENTON, MISSOURI: A Missouri man who filmed himself licking a shelf of toiletry items at an area Walmart has been arrested and charged with making a terrorist threat.
Cody Pfister, 26, had caught the ire of social media after a video posted on Twitter was watched over 4 million times and showed him running his tongue on several items as he looks directly at the camera.
"Who's scared of coronavirus?" he taunts in the short-clip, which he uploaded with the caption, "I'm a nasty moths f*****."
Netizens were understandably unimpressed. "Let's hope evolution removes him from the gene pool for sake of humanity," one user wrote.
"Let's hope he picked up a nice dose of norovirus onto his tongue," another commented. "Throw in a few million flu virus too, and a few million coronavirus. Hopefully he's in for a rough couple of weeks."
After the video went viral, the Warrenton police said that their department had been contacted by people in the Netherlands, Ireland, and the United Kingdom. "We take these complaints very seriously and would like to thank all of those who reported the video so the issue could be addressed," they assured the public.
Pfister was taken into custody shortly and has since been charged by the Warren County Prosecuting Attorney's Office with a terrorist threat in the second degree.
"A local resident who took a video of themselves licking the merchandise after making a "Corona Virus" statement at Walmart and posting it to social media has been taken into custody," Warrenton police confirmed in a statement.
Court documents obtained by the St. Louis Post Dispatch say the 26-year-old "knowingly caused a false belief or fear that a condition involving danger to life existed" and accuse him of acting with "reckless disregard of the risk causing the evacuation, quarantine or closure of any portion."
The news is likely to sit well with 'Good Morning Britain' presenter Piers Morgan, who had slammed Pfister for the disgusting act and demanded a jail term for the "moron." He had also said he should not be provided with healthcare if he contracts Covid-19.
"You know what I'd like to happen to him? I'd like him found, and I'm sure they'll get him, put in prison immediately and then I'd like him deprived of any health care should he then get the virus having deliberately tried to give it, potentially, to lots of other people," Morgan had said.
"That might concentrate the minds of these morons. And it might concentrate the minds of these morons here too."
This is not the first time that Pfister has had a run-in with the law, The 26-year-old has admitted to committing multiple crimes in Montgomery County.
In 2013, he pleaded guilty in circuit court to burglary and stealing a firearm, and in 2016, he pleaded guilty in Montgomery municipal court to a charge of disorderly conduct. Two years later, he pleaded guilty to driving while intoxicated and was given probation, which he then violated.