COVID Hugger

https://nypost.com/2020/08/23/police-searching-for-man-who-gave-strangers-covid-hugs-in-walmart/

This guy goes around giving people hugs and then tells them that he gave them COVID.

He is being sought for assault and battery and terrorism. Although the last seems a bit far fetched.

This is one of those I don’t know what to say things!

 

I read the story. It actually made me laugh. It's probably not funny, but this is 2020, so you know. We're living in surreal world. Hopefully they won't really charge him with being a terrorist.

Anyway, at least he was wearing a protective mask. lol

 

I would shoot the ****er dead. I have 4 vulnerabilities so getting Covid is very close to death for me. I'm generally mild-mannered (and I don't even work for a major metropolitan newspaper) but being murdered sort of riles me somehow.

OTOH I am a "no hugs" person even with close friends, so I'd probably be halfway across the store before he got to me, though was he sneaking up on people from behind?

I'd call it terrorism. Damned straight, being in fear of your life is terrorism, what do you call it?

Though contact isn't a really sure way to get it. Now if he was coughing on people without a mask....

 

I thought about the mask too.
Ironic that the mask might hide his identity enough for him to avoid being identified.
The guy does deserve the assault and battery charges but the term terrorism is thrown around too easily.
I think it’s just some guy who is bored and thought it was funny.

 

Yeah. Job shut down. Can't go to the bar. Can't go to church. Mask mandates. Sketchy statistics. Can't do anything but "protest". No end in sight. = Covid Fatigue.

 

Can you imagine being arrested for "Serial Hugging"? LOL


https://www.masslive.com/news/2020/...rt-and-threatening-to-give-them-covid-19.html

 

It sounds like he just wants the attention as he has to know there are cameras everywhere inside WalMart and probably the parking lot.

I wouldn't want to be touched by a stranger even without a pandemic.

 

Neither would I, but I also probably wouldn't have called police on the guy. I've seen far worse things since Covid started, like people intentionally coughing in other peoples' faces and coughing all over the fruits and veggies in the produce aisle.

 

Slow news day, maybe? They are going to have a hard time making "terrorism" stick. I'd love to see the judge's face when that is presented.

Have you ever seen "Monk" with Tony Shaloub? That's basically me around other people's germs. LOL

 

Haha, yes! I'm not much of a germaphobe myself, but I certainly wouldn't go hugging strangers or be "pleased" with some stranger grabbing me.

I guess my reaction would depend on his tone of voice. If he did sound bored and seemed like a friendly-type person, I'd have just thought it was "weird" and laughed it off. If he was being aggressive, then I might have reported him to the store manager. We don't really get the body language and tone of voice from the article. That would make a difference.

 

I was NOT a germaphobe pre-COVID. LOL

True. It's sad how some people just jump to the worst case scenario about things. EVERYBODY is not a super villain. ;-0

 

Actually social distancing is something I have practiced my whole life. Outside of the occasional very attractive woman I don’t want to be closer than 6 feet to anyone.
Being hugged by a stranger is just plain creepy.

 

For me, tone of voice and body language would make the difference between "funny-weird", "ewww-creepy", and "scary-aggressive". If we're being legally "technical", then hugging a stranger could be defined as "assault".

 

Battery is technically any unwanted physical contact while assault is making a credible threat which is subjective to the hearer. So if he had merely hugged them and said nothing, that would be a battery but if one is terrified of COVID (as most of us have been trained to be) than the assault charge could be added.

Terrorism on the other hand is the absurd allegation born out of the false notion that this virus is wildly dangerous. I hope this is a non starter if they ever find this guy.

I suspect that he was being recklessly playful (a new legal term I just made up) and I hope he gets away with a warning or a suspended sentence if he is ever even caught.

“Who was that masked man?”

 

It certainly is terrorism. If someone posted white powder to others, some of those letters containing anthrax but most just harmless talc, is that terrorism?

 

From the link within the original link...

All of these headlines seem "more" threatening than "Serial Hugger":

 

It is definitely worse to have someone cough or threaten to cough on another person. Don't people have hobbies, other than coughing on people, anymore? ;-0

 

I doubt this guy was ever a real danger but rather a spin off of the urban legend about the person who slept with people and wrote welcome to world of HIV on their wall after disappearing in the middle of the night.

Some part of me wonders if this were some kind of dare.

 

LOL. I know, right?

 

Terrorism is what Fauci and the MSM have been doing for these last 7 months.

 

How?

 

He doesn't look white. No wonder hardly any democrats are posting in this thread.

 

Lots of crazies out there. A buddy of mine works in hotel management at a very high end place and actually had a doctor from NY call him to warn him that his wife and daughter were both covid positive and, against his and their own doctors orders, flying down via business jet to check in and be on vacation for two weeks. Completely nuts.

 

More than half of the posters in this thread are "left" - have you even bothered to read the few posts? And it's the "right" posters who think that this is a non-event and the "left" who have stated that they think the act is a form of terrorism. Your post is a 100% failure

 

If you don't understand 7 months in, there is nothing I could possibly say to help you understand now.