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.

  • Trainguyrom@reddthat.com
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    6 hours ago

    I misread the police car on the thumbnail as “Meesa police” and thought it was going to be a jarjar binks meme before I read the title

  • Passerby6497@lemmy.world
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    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”

  • cmnybo@discuss.tchncs.de
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    2 days 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
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      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.

      • stoly@lemmy.world
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        21 hours ago

        That’s because it’s an easy way to cause the death of children. People become angry, understandably.

      • Tyfud@lemmy.world
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        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.

      • Modern_medicine_isnt@lemmy.world
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        Uh oh, but will that department get the ax after inauguration? Might be time to do delivery only groceries. Where I live they come from special stores with no general public access.

        • MutilationWave@lemmy.world
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          21 hours ago

          I think they’d have a harder time getting rid of the FDA than the Department of Education, which sadly is in the crosshairs.

          • inv3r5ion@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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            6 hours ago

            Honestly - and I’m asking this in good faith - why do we need a federal department of education? Every state has their own department of education and sets their own standards anyway. Is it not redundant? Do they do something special? The only thing I can recall that was federal education related was no child left behind which destroyed education and just led to children passing grades that can’t read, write or do basic math. And of course the federal student loan program, which is just the government profiteering off its youth.

            Note how I’m not asking why we need the FDA. There’s not even a question about how we need it. Arguably, we need more of it.

  • halcyoncmdr@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    Now, this could qualify as terrorism.

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

      • FuglyDuck@lemmy.world
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        you’d be surprised. A fairly large number of them are quite miserly, even in their personal lives.

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

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

          • inv3r5ion@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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            6 hours ago

            Now that’s a leap of logic if I’ve ever seen one.

            If the manifesto is believed to be real and Luigi is the shooter, he did it because UHC is the biggest and denies the most claims by a long shot, a third or so, and then one of their medicare disadvantage plans uses AI to deny 90% of claims.

            The fact that he’s a class traitor and this wasn’t a personal vendetta makes it even more respectable in my book.

            • queermunist she/her@lemmy.ml
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              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.

                • NutWrench@lemmy.ml
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                  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.

                • queermunist she/her@lemmy.ml
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                  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?

              • Hello Hotel@lemmy.world
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                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.

          • rumba@lemmy.zip
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            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.

      • Hello Hotel@lemmy.world
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        Honestly, there doesnt have to be a political motivation. If its political, they would want to say their message and not just give control of the narritive to the media.

        • Ilovethebomb@lemm.ee
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          17 hours ago

          I strongly suggest you pull out a dictionary, and look up the definition of terrorism.

      • GHiLA@sh.itjust.works
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        I didn’t see what store it was but maybe he was trying to kill all of the flies in his local Whole Foods.

    • Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world
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      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…

      • inv3r5ion@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        Politics is everywhere because it affects every aspect of our lives even if we consider ourselves apolitical and don’t pay attention to the news or politics.

        This story isn’t going away because even amongst the apolitical our healthcare system has fucked over nearly everyone either directly or a close loved one. The only people not getting fucked over are those on the tippy top. Even the upper middle class - if they get cancer they can lose their life’s savings. And our end of life care is essentially vultures picking clean a body only replace vultures with the health care system that keeps people alive for far too long past their natural life span to milk every last cent out of them.

      • Ookami38@sh.itjust.works
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        1 day 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
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          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@lemmy.sdf.org
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            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
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        2 days 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.

        • AA5B@lemmy.world
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          One has a potential villain above the law and a moral purpose in removing him, or is at least a sympathetic figure striking out at one of the many causes of our misery, and who we can applaud. There is a root cause in desperate need of fixing but corporate voices in search of profit who are somehow more important than people’s lives

          The other is threatening people’s lives and health by contaminating food, and dismissing as a “prank” for clicks. He needs plenty of time in jail and to forfeit whatever cash those clicks might bring. There is no morality play, no political difference, only exploiting the worst of humanity for cash

      • Ilovethebomb@lemm.ee
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        2 days 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.

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

        (They’re the same story)

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

  • atzanteol@sh.itjust.works
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    It’s remarkable that it needs to be said but… Don’t record yourself doing crimes and post it on YouTube.

  • thefartographer@lemm.ee
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    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”

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    Wait till you learn what the growers sprayed on those veggies. And what it did to the farm worker’s children…