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According to police, Charles Smith, 27, entered the Walmart at 1955 S. Stapley Dr. on Dec. 19 intending to film pranks for social media platforms.

Instead, police said Smith grabbed a can of Hot Shot Ultra Bed Bug and Flea Killer from a shelf without paying for it and then sprayed the pesticide on various vegetables, fruit and rotisserie chickens that were available for purchase.

Smith recorded his face, the pesticide can and the act of him spraying its contents. He later posted the recording online.

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[-] Passerby6497@lemmy.world 2 points 13 minutes ago

Smith recorded his face, the pesticide can and the act of him spraying its contents. He later posted the recording online.

"Arrest me Daddy uwu"

[-] GraniteM@lemmy.world 17 points 2 hours ago
[-] cmnybo@discuss.tchncs.de 170 points 10 hours ago

Yeah, that's not a prank. That could have killed people if nobody noticed it.

I hope they lock his dumb ass up for a long time.

[-] kameecoding@lemmy.world 34 points 4 hours ago

From the last wave of pranks when people licked ice creams and put it back I have learned that messing with food is a federal crime in the US and is taken quite seriously.

[-] Tyfud@lemmy.world 13 points 1 hour ago

As it should be. The regulations were significantly increased after the Tylenol murders in 1982. It's also why we have no tamper things on many ingestible items.

[-] halcyoncmdr@lemmy.world 100 points 10 hours ago

Now, this could qualify as terrorism.

Not a single murder of a psychopathic indirect mass murderer CEO.

[-] zbyte64@awful.systems 38 points 9 hours ago

Doubt many CEOs shop at Walmart, otherwise it would totally be terrorism charges.

[-] FuglyDuck@lemmy.world 12 points 9 hours ago

you'd be surprised. A fairly large number of them are quite miserly, even in their personal lives.

[-] thisbenzingring 1 points 19 minutes ago

The CEO types have people who are responsible for filing the fridge and pantry. Those people probably shop at Walmart just like everyone else.

[-] Iheartcheese@lemmy.world 10 points 9 hours ago

What do you believe his political motive was in spraying the produce?

[-] chickenf622@sh.itjust.works 10 points 9 hours ago

Whatever you think it is to fit your personal narrative /s

[-] theUwUhugger@lemmy.world 4 points 9 hours ago* (last edited 43 minutes ago)

What was the political motive behind Luigi YAHOOO-ing the ceo?

I would recommend you reading his manifesto as long as you can, its not long but its being taken down from pretty much everwhere

[-] Ilovethebomb@lemm.ee 0 points 7 hours ago

It's been publicallly stated neither him nor his parents were customers of that specific insurance company, so the manifesto is likely fake.

[-] rumba@lemmy.zip 1 points 16 minutes ago

The manifesto they found on him was completely innocuous. What people are talking about that you consider might be fake is his online post history of the years on several platforms. no way they backfilled several services for that.

[-] theUwUhugger@lemmy.world 3 points 5 hours ago

The “We have no indication that he was ever a client of United Healthcare…” (https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2024/12/13/us/ceo-shooting-luigi-mangione-unitedhealthcare) is a little far away from a definitive statement, isn’t it? If they knew that not to be the case, why wouldn’t they say it so? Its really shouldn’t be hard to find out

[-] queermunist@lemmy.ml 2 points 4 hours ago

So... do you think he was a customer, and they just haven't found out yet?

Like you said, it shouldn't be hard to find out. Therefore, he almost certainly wasn't a customer. They'd know.

[-] theUwUhugger@lemmy.world 3 points 4 hours ago

So… why aren’t they saying that?

[-] NutWrench@lemmy.ml 2 points 2 hours ago

United already has a serious public image problem with their 30%-35% claim denial rate.

How much worse would it be if they said, "yeah, Luigi's back problems could have been easily fixed by surgery, but we decided to deny that claim and put him on painkillers for the rest of his life." They'd be admitting that one of their many fark-ups got their CEO killed. And that's not going to help their case if this ever goes to trial.

[-] theUwUhugger@lemmy.world 0 points 44 minutes ago

I am not an american so I wouldn’t know, but surely your police force wouldn’t lie in the interest of a company, would it?

Or like, there would be massive legal backlash if the company disclosed false info to the police, no?

What is going on over the great puddle?

[-] rumba@lemmy.zip 1 points 10 minutes ago

police force wouldn’t lie

Absolutely corruptible. That lie wouldn't even be expensive. Company puts in a call to execs running the police, they say how they want it to go down, make promises for money/power/favor, trickles down through the ranks.

massive legal backlash if the company disclosed false info

The feds didn't even pay the reward and there was no backlash. We don't get together well and protest over things that don't affect us individually. Even the left is shit at it. We expect them to lie. If someone produces proof he was with them, they'll just plain plausible deniability or individual incompetence.

Corporations own our political landscape on both sides. The judges, the police, everyone is running with a level of autonomy, wiggle room as you will, but when they need a narrative fed, it's easy. Only 60% of us even believe the truth, feeding a few lies is simple.

[-] queermunist@lemmy.ml 3 points 4 hours ago* (last edited 4 hours ago)

That's just how cops talk. Police are trained to speak as vaguely as possible in order to not give the defense any ammunition. If they say "he was not a customer" then the defense can use that in the trial, and why would they want to help the defense?

Now answer my question. Do you think he was a customer, and they just haven’t found out yet?

[-] theUwUhugger@lemmy.world 2 points 3 hours ago

How on the bloody earth would assassinating his character help his defense? Maybe if they were lying, that could help I guess?

He is either ought to be, or he is a set up! It is very suspicious that after a week of headless panicking they found the suspect with the murder weapon and an apparently false paper explaining that he did it

[-] HelloHotel@lemmy.world 1 points 4 hours ago

They are not giving a definitive answer and merly giving their (less legally binding) professional opinion. Its like they dont want to know or publish an absolute.

[-] queermunist@lemmy.ml 1 points 4 hours ago

Yeah that's how cops talk. They don't want to put a professional statement out there if it helps the defense.

[-] Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world 2 points 9 hours ago

I mean, I get your point......but not every story has to be compared to other stories. In this case Luigi. I also see other people bring up politics during stories that have nothing to do with politics.

And I wonder why people do that. Why talk about an unrelated topic when there's already an interesting topic?

I guess it's not as bad as reddit, where they would instead just post a random unrelated quote from the office, but still....

[-] Ookami38@sh.itjust.works 7 points 4 hours ago

It's quite simply what's on people's minds right now. It was a major event, it outlines some of the systemic inequalities, and people are interested in the subject.

[-] MajorHavoc@programming.dev 2 points 3 hours ago

Yeah.

It's also just fun to talk about because it probably makes US healthcare CEOs nervous.

After all they've done to the rest of us, it's nice to think of them feeling nervous. If they're not going to feel our grief, or appropriate remorse, or empathy, at least they can feel nervous.

[-] thisbenzingring 1 points 9 minutes ago

There's a good book about capitalism and what happens when the CEO class gets nervous about the underclass getting tired of their shit. It's called The Iron Heel by Jack London. It's what inspired 1984 and is the start of the dystopian future sci-fi writing.

The basic premise is it never ends like the French Revolution when the workers revolt because the regular person has too much invested in the status quo.

[-] halcyoncmdr@lemmy.world 7 points 9 hours ago

It's a current event being compared to another current event. One about a murder, and the other potentially attempted homicide, depending on the pesticide used. Seems to be pretty related to me, regardless of any politics.

Just because they call it a "prank", and the media uses the same shitty term, that doesn't make spraying pesticides on food for unsuspecting citizens to grab any less dangerous.

[-] AmidFuror@fedia.io 2 points 8 hours ago

Corporate needs you to find the difference between this story and this story.

(They're the same story)

[-] Ilovethebomb@lemm.ee 3 points 9 hours ago

It reminds me of the dupes on Facebook that comment "must have been a Kamala voter" on every video of someone doing something stupid.

[-] Ilovethebomb@lemm.ee 0 points 9 hours ago

What political cause or ideology do you think this was done in support of?

[-] HelloHotel@lemmy.world 1 points 4 hours ago

Honestly, there doesnt have to be a political motivation. The default assumption is getting a reaction out of people.

[-] GhiLA@sh.itjust.works 0 points 4 hours ago* (last edited 4 hours ago)

I didn't see what store it was but maybe he was trying to kill all of the flies in his local Whole Foods.

[-] atzanteol@sh.itjust.works -4 points 9 hours ago

Now, this could qualify as terrorism.

🤣

[-] Chozo@fedia.io 28 points 9 hours ago

He only got ~300 likes on his posts, too. Dude's picking up a felony charge for 300 likes.

[-] pastermil@sh.itjust.works 14 points 7 hours ago

Good, let him rot in irrelevance, and prison.

[-] LodeMike@lemmy.today 50 points 10 hours ago
[-] atzanteol@sh.itjust.works 8 points 9 hours ago

It's remarkable that it needs to be said but... Don't record yourself doing crimes and post it on YouTube.

[-] PraiseTheSoup@lemm.ee 1 points 55 minutes ago

Unless you do universally hated shit like this dickhole, then by all means, tell us exactly who you are and what you did.

[-] viking@infosec.pub 5 points 8 hours ago

It's just a prank, bro!

[-] thefartographer@lemm.ee 6 points 9 hours ago

I don't know what community I thought I was in, but I thought this was gonna be some joke story about Jar Jar Binks running a police force. Those cops need to fix the spacing for "Mesa"

this post was submitted on 22 Dec 2024
194 points (98.5% liked)

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