'You now have coronavirus,' man tells boy at Treasure Island restaurant, police say

[teach1st]

‘You now have coronavirus,’ man tells boy at Treasure Island restaurant, police say
Tampa Bay Times, 8/4/2020

A 47-year-old man is accused of grabbing a child wearing a mask at a restaurant, getting close to his face and telling him: “You now have coronavirus.”

Jason Andrew Copenhaver, of Redington Shores, was arrested on charges of simple battery and disorderly conduct after the incident, according to Treasure Island police.

The incident took place at about 9:30 p.m. Sunday at 10601 Gulf Blvd., which is the address for Ricky T’s.

Copenhaver approached the child, who was at a table wearing a mask, according to arrest reports. The boy’s age was not released by police.

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[Newest Reality]

1. My theory is...

The people who have been on the verge of popping, cracking, losing it and are already very unstable are going to be doing it in droves as the stress and insecurity of our current predicament continue to bear down on them. They can't handle it and are ill-prepared to reason it out or practice reasonable impulse control.

In a turbid, rather rabid mind, symbols become very powerful and can trigger repressed behaviors and obsessive compulsive reactions that obviously make no sense. They are on automatic and may or may not be on medications, licit or illicit.

I don't just see this as the anecdotal incidents we are seeing. We have little to no mental healthcare or a means, (other than the police) to deal with this kind of societal phenomena right now and having more help along those lines might mitigate the continuing breakdown of vulnerable individuals lost in a lost world.

I am not making any excuses for the behaviors, but it seems to be a bad trend and we can see how the circumstances are exacerbating this problem

In the meantime, keep this in mind and, depending on where you live, watch out for sudden shifts in behavior and avoid that when possible.

[OregonBlue]

3. Or they're drunk.

[Newest Reality]

4. True...

In the context of my comment, self-medicating is part of the equation. That fuels the behavior.

[redstatebluegirl]

6. Drunk just makes them more truthful, their real self is exposed.

[OregonBlue]

16. Agreed. It brings out their true thoughts.

[tblue37]

8. Drunk:

Copenhaver then walked to a bar area, where staff asked him to sit down because he appeared intoxicated and wasn’t wearing shoes. Copenhaver then tried to hit a staff member, reports state.

[alwaysinasnit]

7. Totally agree. I found this interest and rather prescient article regarding mental health care cuts

https://timeline.com/reagan-trump-healthcare-cuts-8cf64aa242eb

In the early 1980s, during President Ronald Reagan’s first few years in office, his administration slashed Medicaid expenditures by more than 18 percent. The Department of Health and Human Services budget was cut by 25 percent, essentially eliminating several public-health programs. Federal funding for maternal and child health was reduced by 18 percent — subsequent programming cuts ended up creating no administrative savings.

Sound eerily familiar? It should. President Trump’s budget also suggests social welfare program funding be reduced by $272 billion; the Department of Health and Human Services’ budget cut by 18 percent. This would mean funding for Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), a.k.a. food stamps, would be reduced by a quarter and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), a.k.a. welfare, by 13 percent. And even if republicans’ last-gasp effort to gut the Affordable Care Act fails, Medicaid still stands to see drastic cuts and changes at the state level.

If you’re wondering how these reductions might affect the nation’s health, public health experts say to look no further than what Reagan wrought. Over the summer, two prominent public health scholars raised the specter of Reagan in scientific papers as a harbinger of things to come if Republicans achieve their budgetary wishes.

Both David R. Williams, a professor of public health at Harvard University, and Sandro Galea, the dean of public health at Boston University, separately brought up the aftermath of Reagan’s similarly sweeping reductions to federal health and social welfare program funding as evidence of the potential public-health impacts of the current administration’s proposed budget cuts.

[Newest Reality]

12. Thanks!

That's what I am referring to.

There is little to no concern for public mental health and we leave it all to police if someone snaps or reacts inappropriately.

I think that was part of the thrust to "defund" the police, which meant to put more funds into a multi-faceted approach to community problems, not just allow for a punitive response to feed the prison system. Our prisons are the last resort and double as psych wards which reveals a system based on force and control, which is not how some other advanced countries treat their citizens.

It is a matter of having someone to turn to when the mindset turns bad. Studies show that 1 in 4 people have no close confidant to even talk to or be with in America now. That's a form of social isolation that only contributes to this and we all pay for it in some way. Prevention would be the sane and rational approach when possible.

Yeah, I know, dream on.

[alwaysinasnit]

14. +1000

[enough]

13. Yes. NT

[unblock]

2. More domestic terrorism

Again, if Muslims did it, everyone would agree it was terrorism.

[torius]

5. Zombie Trumpers

basically eating faces to create more zombies. Just another day in MAGAmerica.

[Chainfire]

9. Somebody needs a good old fashioned

hand crafted, Southern style azz whoopin.

[spudspud]

17. Agreed. /nt

[LakeArenal]

10. Or just can't imagine that they have wrong for 4 years now.

That trump is a nut job at the least, a treasonous killer more likely.

[lpbk2713]

11. Lock him up! Lock him up!

[3Hotdogs]

15. There goes his job at the car wash.