We’ve all heard of courthouses being evacuated due to firearms or bomb threats, but it’s a fair bet that few of us would expect to hear of a courthouse being evacuated due to the sudden infestation of bed bugs. But that’s just what happened last month at the Rogers County Courthouse in Oklahoma when a lawyer entered the court room literally covered in bed bugs.
Attorney Covered In Bed Bugs
Court proceedings were interrupted one early February morning when an unidentified attorney walked in covered in bed bugs. There were so many of the parasites that spectators in the gallery could see them falling from the lawyer’s clothes.
Scott Walton, of the Rogers County Sheriff’s Office, told local news outlets that “a courthouse user noticed them and said she could visibly see something crawling on his neck which was later found to be bed bugs”. Walton went on to say that the lawyer had “placed his his jacket over some file folders, and when his jacket was moved bed bugs were discovered there.”
Oblivious to the Parasites?
It’s hard to imagine the attorney in question wasn’t aware of his bed bug issues. Bed bug bites may not be life threatening, but they’re certainly hard to ignore. And covered as he was in these blood sucking parasites he must surely have noticed he was being bitten over and over again. More to the point, if people can see that you have bed bugs dropping from your suit it’s hard to believe you are unaware of the problem. Perhaps he simply didn’t care.
Evacuating the Courthouse
Ultimately, the courthouse had to be evacuated and all cases rescheduled for another day. Court attendees and spectators were told what to do with their clothing when they got home, and were directed to a website with further information on how to protect themselves from potential bed bug infestations.
Exterminators were brought in immediately to address the problem, and the Rogers County Courthouse reopened the following day. There has been no word on whether or not the lawyer responsible for this bed bug scare will be held to account for the cost of the emergency bed bug treatment and his identity has still not been released to the press.
Published by Scott Palatnik
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