File this one under the valley of the stupid times a thousand. That someone would actually do this — and potentially put our police officers in harm’s way — is mind-boggling.
According to Capt. Timothy Wagner, the public-information officer of the Kearny Police Department, on April 6, 2020, at approximately 1:04 a.m., Kearny officers responded to the area of Kearny Avenue and Dukes Street on a citizen’s report of a man attempting to enter parked vehicles by trying their door handles.
Officers located Marco Costa, 28, of Harrison, nearby. Subsequent to a further investigation, Costa was arrested.
Because, according to Wagner, during his search incident to arrest, Costa allegedly told officers, “I have Corona,” before turning his head and coughing in the direction of the searching officer and then in the directions of two back-up officers.
All officers were wearing N95-style masks at the time of the arrest. None of the officers required medical care as a result of the incident.
Costa was charged on a warrant with five counts of criminal-attempt burglary in the third degree [N.J.S.A. 2C:5-1a (2C:18-2a)]; three counts of throwing bodily fluid at a law enforcement officer in the fourth degree [N.J.S.A. 2C:12-13]; making terroristic threats in the second degree (during a period of declared national, state, or county emergency) [N.J.S.A. 2C:12-3a]; possession of a hypodermic syringe, a disorderly persons offense; and possession of drug paraphernalia (a rubber tourniquet and a mirror), a disorderly persons offense.
Costa was remanded to the Hudson County Correctional Facility to await his first court appearance.
Editor’s note: We can only hope that first appearance isn’t soon.
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Kevin A. Canessa Jr. is the editor of and broadcaster at The Observer, a place where he has served on and off since 2006. He is responsible for the editorial content of the newspaper and website, the production of the e-Newspaper, writing several stories per week (including the weekly editorial), conducting live broadcasts on Facebook Live, including a weekly recap of the news — and much more behind the scenes. Between 2006 and 2008, he introduced the newspaper to its first-ever blog — which included podcasts, audio and video. Originally from Jersey City, Kevin lived in Kearny until 2004, lived in Port St. Lucie. Florida, for four years until February 2016 and in March of that year, he moved back to West Hudson to return to The Observer full time. Click Here to send Kevin an email.