Just when you think you’ve heard it all, someone surprises you. This incident sounds like an episode that could be written for one of my favorite dark comedy TV programs.
“Give me the money or I’ll touch you” was essentially the threat.
Police say Fred Parker, 41, tried to rob a western Pennsylvania gambling parlor by threatening to spread a staph infection. Police said he walked into Lucky’s Internet Cafe in Sharon, PA on Monday night and began touching the walls and gambling machines, claiming he has MRSA – a serious staph infection that resists antibiotics.
Parker then made his way to the cashier and told him he had a deadly and highly contagious disease and offered to walk away if the cashier gave him money. Sharon police Chief Mike Menster says Parker threatened to infect the cashier if he didn’t give Parker money. The chief tells The Herald newspaper of Sharon, “It’s our first case of robbery by threat of an infectious disease.”
Parker also gave the cashier a note identifying himself as an “officer with the U.S. gambling commission,” Menster said.
The cashier apparently didn’t find Parker’s threat of infection to be scary enough and refused to give the would-be robber the money. Parker turned around and left. I wonder what would have happened if Parker had made a move to touch the cashier. You can just see it now – the cashier running around the cafe being chased by a man threatening to touch him.
A description was given to the police and Parker was arrested a short time later. Ironically, he was captured in a Rite Aid store. Maybe he was getting medicine for those nasty symptoms.
He remains in jail after being unable to post bond.
The police weren’t messing around. They not only charged Parker with robbery, but they also charged him with making terrorist threats.
Sources: Security Today, Huffington Post, Effingham Daily News
