He was found with drugs, police said. Then he told officers he has COVID-19

Key West police said they caught a man on his way home with cocaine that he planned to cook into crack on a portable stove inside a downtown bedroom.

But that’s not what alarmed officers as they were arresting Tadarius Hassan Crawford, 37, early Wednesday morning in the 1100 block of Olivia Street in Old Town.

Crawford told police he had tested positive COVID-19 — after officers said he yelled at them “in close proximity.”

Crawford wasn’t wearing a mask at the time, according to the arrest report.

Key West has a strict mask ordinance that requires people to wear them in public, even outdoors, whether or not they can social distance.

So that meant one more charge, violating emergency management rules, which is a misdemeanor, to a list of drug-related charges Crawford now faces.

“Crawford is positive for COVID-19 and has ignored the mandate issued by the governor during a pandemic,” officers wrote.

Crawford was arrested on charges of manufacturing cocaine and MDMA and resisting arrest.

On Wednesday afternoon, Crawford was still locked up at the Stock Island Detention Center without bond.

Crawford is listed as having a Homestead address, but police said he had a crack cocaine-making setup inside a bedroom on the Key West block.

Beakers, baking soda, Chore Boy scrubber, plastic bags and crack pipes were in the room along with the stove., police said.

“It appeared Crawford was on his way back to cook crack cocaine,” the arrest report states.

The building’s owner told police Crawford was not living there but had showed up earlier that day and was inside a front bedroom.

Crawford had caught a police officer’s eye at about 12:30 a.m. Wednesday because he had failed to show up in court on a warrant accusing him of possession of cocaine.

Officer Mark Siracuse spotted Crawford on his bicycle on Olivia Street and stopped him at Taser point.

Crawford “became loud and argumentative,” Siracuse said, and ignored commands to stay seated on his bike and drop whatever was in his hands.

Inside his pockets, Crawford had 16.6 grams of cocaine inside a black glove, police said, and inside another black glove was 4.8 grams of MDMA, or Molly, police said.

At the jail, Crawford was found to have a fever, and was taken to Lower Keys Medical Center, where a rapid test showed he indeed has COVID-19.

This story was originally published August 5, 2020 at 12:26 PM.

Gwen Filosa

Miami Herald

Gwen Filosa covers Key West and the Lower Florida Keys for FLKeysNews.com and the Miami Herald and lives in Key West. She was part of the staff at the New Orleans Times-Picayune that in 2005 won two Pulitzer Prizes for coverage of Hurricane Katrina. She graduated from Indiana University.