The state used post-9/11 laws to charge people guilty of an errant cough with ‘terroristic threats’
Deja Lewis was walking down a sidewalk in Salem, New Jersey, in the early, frightening days of the Covid-19 pandemic in April 2020, when she was stopped by police.
Lewis, 28, was arrested on warrants related to failure to pay traffic tickets, and an incident in which she “escaped” from a police vehicle. She had been a witness to a fight and left the back of the patrol car, her attorney said.
While she was in custody, police said she coughed “in close proximity” to officers, and said she had Covid-19, though no dashboard, body or in-station videos exist to prove the assertion either way.
