Police: Walmart text is urban legend

TAMPA - Moments before FOX 13 met up with them, Alex Rogel and her friends had just gotten a text from a friend they barely talk to.

"It says, 'Do not go to any Walmart. There's a gang initiation at them to kill three women," reads Rogel.

It's a text message spreading like wildfire. It warns about a shooting at Walmart and says to pass it on to every woman.

"I don't know. It sounded pretty real. It sounded scary," offered Rogel's friend Taylor Richardson.

Scary it may be, but local police say it's a hoax. They've received a number of calls about the threat, but say they have absolutely no evidence that points to the text being a legitimate threat.

"Text messages do, and they can, travel very fast but we have no information that there is actually any credible threat," explains Andrea Davis of The Tampa Police Department.

If possible, what makes the message attempt to appear more realistic, is that it claims to come from law enforcement. Police say while they do use the latest technology to get out information about crime trends, this is not one of those situations.

"This appears to be a situation where technology has actually created some panic, some unnecessary panic," adds Davis.

Police believe the threat may be an old urban legend text that began back in 2005. For whatever reason, it's surfacing again. While police say they do take threats seriously, they don't plan on increasing patrols at local Walmarts.

Walmart has issued a statement regarding the texts. It reads in part: "The safety and security of our customers and associates is our top priority. While we take these types of situations seriously, we regard this as being only a rumor."

Even with an assurance from Walmart and police that the threat is a hoax, people like Diana Shannon are erring on the side of caution.

"You have to give something like that, I guess, a little bit of credence that it could be true and just be wary," according to Shannon.