Woman Who Licked Ice Cream Carton Identified, Could Face Charges
I know everyone wants to go viral nowadays.
It doesn’t even matter if it’s in a bad way. To update Wilde’s epigram for the Instagram age, the only thing worse than trending for doing something juvenile is not trending for doing something juvenile.
If you want to get in on this stuff, though, here’s a tip: Don’t commit a felony while you’re doing it — particularly not one that could get you 20 years behind bars.
That’s what one young woman who went into a Lufkin, Texas Walmart and licked a carton of ice cream before putting it back into the freezer could have been looking at after she tried to go viral in both the figurative and literal senses.
Video of the incident can be seen below. According to mySanAntonio.com, an individual claiming to be the perpetrator originally posted to Instagram the video of a woman opening a carton of Blue Bell ice cream, licking it and then putting it back in the freezer.
It got picked up on Twitter, where it has been viewed over 12 million times.
WARNING: The video below contains vulgar language that some viewers may find offensive. Viewer discretion is advised.
What kinda psychopathic behavior is this?! pic.twitter.com/T8AIdGpmuS
— Optimus Primal (@BlindDensetsu) June 29, 2019
Or, as Dorothy Parker might have put it, what fresh heck is this?
I have enough to worry about when I shop for food at Walmart.
I don’t need the possibility of eating food that someone else has licked to enter into my imagination.
It wouldn’t have other than for this video because, well, I believe most people wouldn’t do this.
In a statement, Blue Bell said that it was “monitor[ing] the situation.”
“We want to thank our consumers for alerting us to the incident this past weekend of a video posted to social media showing a Blue Bell item being tampered with,” the Texas-based company said in a statement.
“We take this issue very seriously and are currently working with law enforcement, retail partners and social media platforms. This type of incident will not be tolerated. We will continue to monitor this situation.”
This wasn’t just a minor thing, either.
NBC News reported that a charge of second-degree tampering, which the suspect might have faced, carries a punishment of between two and 20 years in prison.
On Wednesday, the Lufkin Police Department released a statement saying the manager of the Lufkin Walmart had identified the store as his “based … on the store’s unique merchandising which matched the video.”
“At 1:10 p.m. today, Blue Bell contacted us, saying that they believed the viral video took place in the Lufkin Walmart store and that they had retrieved what they believed to be the tainted container of ice cream,” the statement said.
“By 4 p.m., detectives had obtained surveillance video placing a woman matching the suspect description in the Lufkin store on June 28 around 11 p.m.”
The department later said that it had found the perpetrator — and that, due to her age, she wouldn’t be facing the 20 years that she could have been looking at:
“We have identified the ‘Blue Bell licker’ as a juvenile from San Antonio. Under Texas law, anyone under the age of 17 is considered a juvenile,” the Friday statement read.
“The suspect is tied to the Lufkin area through her boyfriend’s family. We have spoken with her boyfriend, who is an adult, as well. They were both forthcoming with what occurred and admitted to the act.”
The department said it did “not intend to pursue charges against her as an ‘adult’ and therefore what happens from here is at the discretion of the juvenile justice system. We cannot speak for them as to what charge she will face in the juvenile justice system.”
“As to whether her boyfriend will face charges, we are currently discussing his involvement with prosecutors.”
Unless there’s some sort of major turn events here, the “Blue Bell licker” (what a nickname) has been found and won’t be facing big-girl consequences for her actions.
However, the fact remains that she should face some sort of punishment.
Police now say the person running a social media account that claimed to be the licker — and said they were sick and wanted to “start an epidemic” — wasn’t the suspect.
That still doesn’t mean licking the ice cream wasn’t profoundly gross — and illegal.
This suspect is lucky she’s a minor and that the carton of ice cream was found before someone brought it home.
Given the outrage, she likely would have faced a heavily publicized trial and a public with absolutely zero sympathy for her.
I hope she’s happy she got the attention.
It might not end with 20 years in prison, but a stint in juvie isn’t exactly fun times, either.
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