SAN FRANCISCO – Security workers and retail employees are facing a new challenge when it comes to protecting merchandise: a new breed of shoplifters who “cough” to avoid arrest.
However, legal experts say suspects who commit such crime are not aware that this could become a felony robbery prosecution.
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In an outside San Francisco suburb, police are searching for a woman who entered a Target and stole merchandise, walking past the cash registers.
When store security confront the shoplifter outside, she purposely coughed at their faces and ran off. Fearing for their safety, security officers backed off, allowing the woman to escape by car.
“People who resisted arrest by either coughing at police officers or by claiming to have corona as their line of defense,” said federal criminal defense attorney Nick Oberheiden.
Law enforcement officers say this wasn’t the first of its kind. The first time this case happened at the beginning of the month in the same area where two women were charged with robbery at a Walgreens.
“The people who are in the grocery store or the pharmacies, they deserve the ability to be safe so we can all go in there and get out food and our prescriptions filled,” said John Bennet, special FBI agent in San Francisco, “It’s coercion by fear or the threat of a biological weapon or virus."
Authorities will continue to learn more about this new types of cases in order to serve and protect the people for their health and safety.