COVID FEAR: Woman pepper-sprays folks trying to ride elevator with her at a D.C. Wal-Mart

WASHINGTON (WJLA) — Social distancing is the phrase that authorities keep emphasizing, but did one woman carry it too far at a downtown D.C. Walmart?

According to Dominick Gamble, a shopper at Walmart Monday afternoon, the shoppers with their baskets were crowded around an elevator to the parking garage.

A woman without the required face mask got on first and tried to close the door on the other shoppers. When they objected, she said she wanted social distancing, says Gamble who shot video of the incident with his cell phone.

“The other ladies stood up,“ Gamble says, “Everybody tried to get on, but she was riding like that so she whipped that mace.”

His video shows a woman who tried to enter the elevator, holding her face, screaming. Other shoppers brought the screaming woman water for her face, while the security guard struggled with another woman trying to get at the pepper sprayer.

Dr. Lucy McBride, a physician who’s dealing with patients she says are in agony, says she is not surprised by what happened.

“This is a crisis not only of our physical health but of our mental health and its more specifically a trauma, a collective trauma,” said McBride.

“All of us, whether you have coronavirus or not, are feeling loss and vulnerability and fear.”

When the ambulance arrived at Walmart, the victim declined treatment.

Security held the pepper sprayer there until the police arrived. She was not arrested or charged.

Gamble, who witnessed the incident said, “Just try to not hurt nobody this virus going. Just stay in the house”

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