A 27-year-old man was arrested and charged with harassing and attempting to assault a TriMet bus driver this weekend, and according to court documents, the man punched and spit on the operator and then yelled, “Now you’re going to get the corona.”

That’s according to a probable cause affidavit filed in Multnomah County Circuit Court.

JJ Lee Purcell was the lone passenger on a Line 14 TriMet bus driven by Don Tacha in downtown Portland this weekend when the incident occurred. According to the court documents, Purcell allegedly started screaming at Tacha when he dropped his cell phone and it cracked.

Purcell reportedly tried to punch Tacha around a plastic protective barrier onboard the bus. TriMet started installing the protective barriers on some of its fleet in 2019 in response to what it says were rising assaults on operators.

According to the documents, Purcell “made contact” with his punch, then spit on Tacha and yelled that he had infected the operator with the novel coronavirus.

TriMet has seen ridership plummet amid the coronavirus pandemic, with rides down 60% last week from February’s ridership.

Purcell remains lodged in Multnomah County jail.

TriMet spokeswoman Roberta Altstadt said the transit agency appreciated the “quick work” of the district attorney’s office in the case.

“The safety and security of our operators and passengers who must ride right now is of the utmost importance, especially during this time of so much uncertainty,” Altstadt said.

Some TriMet operators, and the transit union that represents those front-line employees, have expressed concern about the transit agency’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic. Dozens of those workers have called in sick. Some have worried that there aren’t enough buses equipped with the protective barriers. TriMet has since announced service cuts, which begin Sunday.

According to public records provided to The Oregonian/OregonLive, operators have contacted TriMet’s Operations Command Center 12 times between March 24 and Tuesday with concerns about possible exposure to the coronavirus.

In those incidents, the buses are returned to the garage and cleaned.

It’s not clear whether the spitting case was one of those twelve instances.

On Monday, TriMet said it had its first known case of an employee testing positive for the novel coronavirus.

-- Andrew Theen; atheen@oregonian.com; 503-294-4026; @andrewtheen

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