Punks Popped For Pandemic Video Pranks

MAY 11--Two Florida teenagers busted for “running around Walmart coughing” and spraying workers and customers with Febreze told cops they were “just trying to be funny and make their videos for YouTube,” according to an arrest affidavit.

Responding Saturday evening to a report of disturbance at Walmart, cops located two suspects who had driven away from the Vero Beach business in a pickup truck.

The suspects--Amos Troublefield and Antonio Green, both 18-were captured on store surveillance footage “recording themselves coughing” while spraying Febreze from under their armpits “onto customers in the store.” The spraying of air freshener on a victim was apparently intended to replicate the expulsion of droplets from a mouth during a cough.

When questioned, Troublefield and Green told police that they were recording a YouTube video depicting them “pretending to cough on somebody but actually spraying them with Febreze.”

When a cop asked the teens why they “would be coughing on people during a pandemic (COVID-19) they advised they were just trying to be funny and make their videos for YouTube.”

Pictured above, Troublefield (left) and Green were arrested for disorderly conduct and shoplifting, both misdemeanors. The latter charge stemmed from the duo’s use of Febreze bottles taken from a Walmart shelf.

The pranksters were each released from the Indian River county jail after posting $1000 bond. They are scheduled for arraignment on June 2. (2 pages)