Hesston couple who coughed, claimed ‘he has coronavirus’ at Newton Walmart arrested
A Hesston couple caught on cellphone video repeatedly coughing and claiming “he has coronavirus” during a shopping trip Monday at the Newton Walmart has been arrested on suspicion of criminal threat and disorderly conduct, according to a Newton police official.
What motivated Hazel Hamrick, 29, and Ernest Williams, 47, to play such a prank on already uneasy shoppers and store employees? Newton Deputy Chief Scott Powell said the couple “was trying to be funny.”
“They aren’t taking this COVID-19 pandemic seriously. They think it’s all overblown,” Powell told The Eagle.
“Most people have enough anxiety over this that they don’t think it’s funny. ... We don’t think it’s funny. The people at Walmart don’t think it’s funny,” he said.
Hamrick and Williams, in a phone interview Tuesday afternoon after they posted bail, denied coughing on people and said those in the store misunderstood their actions.
“I was not meaning anything by it. I wasn’t saying that he — my fiance (Williams) — has coronavirus. I was just trying to let people know that somebody else had that in the store,” Hamrick said, adding that Williams has a “smoker’s cough” and did not purposely hack on an employee but that they got kicked out by Walmart management anyway.
She didn’t say who specifically she was referring to when she repeatedly announced “he has coronavirus” in the store.
Hamrick and Williams said that they think concern over the coronavirus has been blown “out of proportion” but said they never thought they would get into trouble.
Powell urged pranksters who might be considering a similar gag to stay at home and practice social distancing instead.
“Coughing on people and saying you have it (the virus) is not remotely funny or acceptable,” he said, warning that copycats might also face criminal charges.
“We’ve talked to the county attorney’s office and they’re going to aggressively prosecute the case because it’s not funny.”
In a Facebook post Tuesday, the Newton Police Department said Hamrick and Williams “admitted to walking around Walmart” while Williams coughed on people and Hamrick claimed he had become ill with COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus that has sickened more than a million people across the globe.
Harvey County had four confirmed cases of the virus by late Tuesday morning, according to a daily condition report from the Kansas Department of Health and Environment. Statewide, there were 900 cases and 27 deaths as of 11 a.m.
Nationwide, there were more than 386,000 confirmed COVID-19 cases and more 12,000 deaths by mid-afternoon Tuesday, according to John Hopkins University’s coronavirus resource center.
Powell said the Newton Police Department learned of the couple’s behavior at around 9 p.m. Monday after seeing video footage of them in Walmart circulating on social media.
The 9-second video, taken by another shopper, shows Hamrick and Williams walking together down a Walmart aisle as Hamrick pushes a cart and repeats: “He has coronavirus. He has coronavirus.”
The woman who shot the video, Paula V. Stout, told The Eagle she walked into Walmart late Monday afternoon about the same time as the couple and heard them coughing as they approached the entrance.
Initially, she thought they might be “just trying to clear their throats” before heading in to keep other shoppers from getting nervous, she said.
But as the couple got closer to a store employee counting customers as they went inside, she said she noticed the woman — Hamrick — “definitely overacting” as she coughed.
“The couple got there ahead of me and stood there coughing towards the employee and laughing,” Stout said in a series of Facebook messages to The Eagle, recounting what she witnessed.
Stout said she hurried past the couple to fetch a shopping cart — unsure whether they might be spreading any illness while coughing — and continued into the store.
“I didn’t turn around to look at them, but I heard her (Hamrick) tell someone ... ‘yeah, he’s got coronavirus,’ and then they both were fake coughing some more. And I just walked away as fast as I could because, who knows if they were being truthful?”
Stout said later, while she was by the dog food section using her cellphone, she heard the couple “coming up behind me.”
Both were “fake coughing really loud,” she said.
“I turned my video on and caught the woman poking her head down each aisle saying, ‘He’s got coronavirus. He’s got coronavirus.”
Stout immediately posted the video on her Facebook page, at 5:49 p.m., writing: “I think people like this should be treated just like people who joke about having a bomb on a plane.”
“I couldn’t believe someone would be so ignorant to think that that was funny,” she said.
Stout said she didn’t contact authorities after posting the video on Facebook. But so many people shared the footage on social media, that law enforcement saw it and called her within three hours.
“I was astonished that somebody would be that bold,” she said, referring to the couple.
Hamrick told The Eagle she and Williams went to Walmart on Monday to buy supplies for a pet cat and didn’t think about whether their comments would make store employees and shoppers fearful.
She said feels like a “complete fool about this situation, but I guess stuff happens, and there are consequences.”
“I can’t turn back time. I can’t turn back the clock. I just really feel bad.”
Williams claims he never coughed on anyone and said “we wasn’t laughing at all about any of it.”
The couple was booked into the Harvey County Jail but each was released after posting a $5,000 bond, they said.
Powell, the Newton police deputy chief, said this is the first case of someone pretending to have the coronavirus in a public place that his department has investigated.
But it’s not the first in Kansas.
Last week, a 31-year-old Scott City man, Chance Archie Seamans, was arrested on suspicion of terrorism and criminal threat after he told an 11-year-old girl he would give her the virus and coughed in her face at a Dollar General Store. Police also arrested a 19-year-old man, Dominic Daniel Edson, 19 years old, on suspicion of conspiracy to commit terrorism, criminal threat and assault in connection with that incident.
This story was originally published April 7, 2020 at 12:32 PM.
