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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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[-] halcyoncmdr@lemmy.world 144 points 1 day ago

Now, this could qualify as terrorism.

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

[-] Agent641@lemmy.world 1 points 10 hours ago

It would need to be politically motivated

[-] zbyte64@awful.systems 64 points 1 day ago

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

[-] FuglyDuck@lemmy.world 17 points 1 day ago

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

[-] thisbenzingring@lemmy.sdf.org 7 points 23 hours 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 16 points 1 day ago

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

[-] chickenf622@sh.itjust.works 14 points 1 day ago

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

[-] theUwUhugger@lemmy.world 6 points 1 day ago* (last edited 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 -1 points 1 day ago

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 1 points 1 hour 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.

[-] theUwUhugger@lemmy.world 7 points 1 day 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 5 points 1 day 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 1 day ago

So… why aren’t they saying that?

[-] NutWrench@lemmy.ml 5 points 1 day 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 2 points 1 day 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?

[-] inv3r5ion@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 1 hour ago

You can’t be serious are you being serious right now??? Assuming this wasn’t sarcasm the police here lie all the time and it’s perfectly legal for them to do so.

If you ever come here for a visit, trust no one, trust nothing, don’t believe anything you hear or see and definitely don’t talk to the cops.

[-] rumba@lemmy.zip 6 points 23 hours 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 5 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day 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 1 points 1 day 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

[-] Ilovethebomb@lemm.ee 2 points 12 hours ago

The most likely explanation for that is he's not the criminal mastermind you want him to be.

[-] nomy@lemmy.zip 3 points 23 hours ago* (last edited 23 hours ago)

Dude you're thinking way too deeply into, it really is as simple as "that's just how cops and lawyers talk, nobody is going to give away anything."

On top of that we have pretty serious restrictions called HIPAA on releasing private healthcare information and no insurance provider in the world is just going to go ahead and confirm plans details or lack of one if they don't have to.

[-] theUwUhugger@lemmy.world 0 points 23 hours ago

So you think the police shared a semi-guess on the conference?

[-] nomy@lemmy.zip 3 points 23 hours ago

What was their guess? Their statement was a non-answer at best.

[-] theUwUhugger@lemmy.world 1 points 22 hours ago

I can copy in the same quote from a few comments above? “We have no indication that he was ever the client of United Healthcare…” (https://www.cnn.com/2024/12/13/us/ceo-shooting-luigi-mangione-unitedhealthcare/index.html)

[-] nomy@lemmy.zip 2 points 22 hours ago

I'm not sure what you think that statement means.

[-] HelloHotel@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day 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 3 points 1 day ago

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

[-] rumba@lemmy.zip 1 points 23 hours 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.

[-] Ilovethebomb@lemm.ee 1 points 1 day ago

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

[-] HelloHotel@lemmy.world -1 points 1 day ago* (last edited 20 hours ago)

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 1 points 12 hours ago

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

[-] GhiLA@sh.itjust.works -1 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day 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.

[-] Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day 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....

[-] inv3r5ion@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 1 hour ago

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 12 points 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 5 points 1 day 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@lemmy.sdf.org 4 points 23 hours 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 10 points 1 day 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 3 points 22 hours ago* (last edited 22 hours ago)

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 3 points 1 day 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.

[-] AmidFuror@fedia.io 2 points 1 day ago

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

(They're the same story)

[-] atzanteol@sh.itjust.works -2 points 1 day ago

Now, this could qualify as terrorism.

🤣

this post was submitted on 22 Dec 2024
341 points (98.6% liked)

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