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Suspect Coughed on Store Shoppers; Wrote ‘COVID’ on Cooler Door

A Missouri man intentionally coughed on fellow shoppers at a store and scrawled “COVID” on a cooler door, police said.

John Swaller, 33, of Cuba, about 80 miles southwest of St. Louis, was arrested Tuesday after an employee at a Dollar Tree called cops to report a man was “purposely coughing toward other customers” and breathed on the inside of a cooler before using his finger to write “COVID” on it, police told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

Investigators said Swaller also put his hands down his pants and rubbed a cooler door handle. The store was later shut down and sanitized, Cuba police said. Swaller, who was jailed on $25,000 bond, was charged in Crawford County with making a terroristic threat in the second degree, the Post-Dispatch reports…  New York Post

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