{"id":805934,"date":"2020-04-01T11:49:47","date_gmt":"2020-04-01T17:49:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.summitdaily.com\/?p=381260"},"modified":"2020-04-01T11:49:47","modified_gmt":"2020-04-01T17:49:47","slug":"coronavirus-stress-leads-aspen-man-to-cough-in-womans-face","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/local-news\/coronavirus-stress-leads-aspen-man-to-cough-in-womans-face\/","title":{"rendered":"Coronavirus \u2018stress\u2019 leads Aspen man to \u2018cough\u2019 in woman\u2019s face"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Pressure caused by the coronavirus, unemployment and social distancing led one local man to lose his temper Sunday and cough in the face of a woman who requested more social space on a local trail.<\/p>\n<p>Tom Patierno, 34, of Aspen later admitted to police he \u201cgot in the woman\u2019s face\u201d and made at least a \u201ccoughing gesture\u201d after she asked him to move over as they approached each other on the Rio Grande Trail, according to an Aspen Police Department report.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m just so sick and tired of all these people and their paranoia,\u201d Patierno told an Aspen police officer who asked why he confronted the woman, according to the report. \u201cI just wanted to go for a walk with my friend and mind my own business, then these people told me that I had to move over for them.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey didn\u2019t have to say anything to me.\u201d<\/p>\n<div class=\"row\">\n<div class=\"col\">\n<div class=\"row sd-donation p-0\">\n<div class=\"col-xl-4 p-2\">\n<div data-bg=\"url(https:\/\/cdn.summitdaily.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2020\/03\/SDN-logo-white-1.png)\" class=\"p-0 mt-2 mb-2 h-75 text-center rocket-lazyload\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.summitdaily.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2020\/03\/SDN-logo-white-1.png\" class=\"logo m-0 p-0 invisible\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div data-bg=\"url(https:\/\/cdn.summitdaily.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2020\/03\/sdn-banner-paypal.jpg)\" class=\"col-xl-8 p-3 text-center rocket-lazyload\">\n<h3 class=\"d-inline mr-3\">Support Local Journalism<\/h3>\n<p><button class=\"btn d-inline\" type=\"button\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.summitdaily.com\/donate\/?utm_source=website&amp;utm_medium=news%20article&amp;utm_campaign=donation\">Donate<\/a><\/button><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>Patierno said he was sorry for his actions and knew he overreacted. He later told an officer who charged him with disorderly conduct that he was \u201cstressed\u201d from losing his job and \u201calso just aggravated at how people are reacting during this crisis,\u201d the police report states.<\/p>\n<p>The incident occurred about 1 p.m. Sunday as the 68-year-old woman, her husband and a friend were walking down Rio Grande Trail and observing the recommended 6-foot social-distancing guidelines, the woman told police. She described Patierno as a \u201clarge man\u201d and said he was walking in the middle of the trail as he approached with a female friend, according to the police report.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cCould you please just move over (and) give us some room,\u201d the woman said she asked Patierno, the report states. \u201c(She) said that when she said this, Patierno came up close to her, got in her face and intentionally coughed in her face.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The woman said she was \u201cvery frightened by this incident and was very scared that she would get sick because of it,\u201d according to the police report.<\/p>\n<p>After admitting to his conduct, Patierno said the woman wasn\u2019t the first person that day to call him out on his behavior.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey probably got me at a bad time because about a minute before that some other lady yelled at me for smoking a cigarette outside,\u201d he told police, the report states.<\/p>\n<p>Patierno told police he would take a COVID-19 test if required, but didn\u2019t want to if he wasn\u2019t required to do so.<\/p>\n<p>The victim later asked if Patierno had been \u201clocked up\u201d and said she would call Colorado\u2019s governor \u201cto find better answers\u201d when an officer told her that wasn\u2019t the procedure when someone was accused of breaking municipal laws, according to the police report.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe acknowledge that this is a stressful time and there are mental health resources out there for people to take advantage of. In addition, communicating with people on the trails and outside should be at a heightened level in order for people to be fully aware you are behind them or passing them,\u201d a city of Aspen spokesperson said Tuesday. \u201cOur APD is taking this seriously and will arrest and write tickets for anyone violating social distancing and putting others in danger.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.summitdaily.com\/news\/coronavirus-stress-leads-aspen-man-to-cough-in-womans-face\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">via:: Summit Daily<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Pressure caused by the coronavirus, unemployment and social distancing led one local man to lose his temper Sunday and cough in the face of a woman who requested more social space on a local trail. Tom Patierno, 34, of Aspen later admitted to police he \u201cgot in the woman\u2019s face\u201d and made at least a [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[99],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-805934","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-07-17 15:03:17","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSMT The Mountain","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/805934","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=805934"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/805934\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=805934"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=805934"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=805934"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}