Who got killed at Walmart last week? Oh yeah, no one!

If you’re a female with a cell phone and text messaging plan, chances are you got a text last week telling you not to go to Walmart because a gang initiation required three women to be killed there.

When I got the text the first time, I immediately had questions, like, “How do you know this is going to happen? Who told you this? Why would a gang choose Kearney, NE?” It seemed weird and quite unbelievable, though I’m sure my friend probably sent it to me thinking, well, better safe than sorry!

But when I got it the fifth time, I wanted to know one thing and one thing only: Are you people serious?

Let’s break it down for a second and think about this logically.

First, how many rumors have you heard about gang initiations supposedly set to happen in your town, and it never plays out? I remember not long after I turned 16 there was an e-mail going around that said gang initiates would hide under a woman’s car while she filled up her gas tank and cut off her foot. They supposedly needed a certain number of feet or some crap like that. Of course, I was young and scared and totally believed it.

Every time after that, though, I became more and more skeptical of the validity of such messages. Years later, I would become a journalism student and learn to dissect these rumors for what they really are: urban legends.

So anyway, I looked up this gang initiation rumor on Snopes.com (your best friend in situations such as these), and it turns out that the text message is just a reincarnation of an e-mail that began circulating in mid-July 2005, warning people around Memphis that a gang was going to kill a mother and young child at Walmart for initiation.

Since then, similar versions have been popping up periodically in different locales until they eventually burned out.

Since texting has grown popular with wide spread use only in recent years, when this old rumor did finally find its way into a text message format, the impact was astounding. Police stations in 43 states (some reports say all 50 states) and the District of Columbia reported receiving warnings from people who had gotten the message, and none of the states experienced initiation of this sort at all.

And just for future reference (and to keep your paranoia at bay), Major Pat Lovett of the Metro Gang Unit in Memphis said that in her 25-year experience, gang initiations have never included murder.

Also, something to keep in mind the next time you receive a similar text and want to pass it along: Mike Smith, director of 911 in Covington-Newton county of Georgia, warns, “Passing along unverified information is reckless and irresponsible.” Or to put it more simply: don’t forward this crap. Kthnx.

To read the entire history of this rumor, go to www.snopes.com/crime/gangs/walmart.asp