Police in East Texas say they have spoken with the suspect in a viral video seen licking a tub of Blue Bell ice cream before putting it back in the store’s freezer and have identified her as a juvenile.
In the video, which was uploaded to Twitter and has since been watched over 10 million times, the girl was seen licking an already opened tub of Blue Bell’s Tin Roof flavor ice cream, and then re-seal the ice cream and return it to a store’s freezer. All tubs of the flavor shown in the video were pulled from that store’s shelves.
Lufkin police dubbed her the “Blue Bell licker.” And while it might have been a comedic moniker, police took the investigation seriously. And the potential punishment is no laughing matter.
Lufkin police identified her earlier this week after officers found surveillance video of a female seen leaving the store, who matched the description of the suspect. She could face up to 20 years in prison if she’s charged with the second-degree felony.
It does make you think about proportionality in the criminal justice system. 20 years for licking ice cream? And, nothing – so far – for what happened to Blue Bell in 2015 when a total of 10 people infected with several strains of Listeria were reported from 4 states: Arizona (1), Kansas (5), Oklahoma (1), and Texas (3). Illness onset dates ranged from January 2010 through January 2015. The people with illness onsets during 2010–2014 were identified through a retrospective review of the PulseNet database for DNA fingerprints matching isolates collected from Blue Bell ice cream samples. All 10 (100%) people were hospitalized. Three deaths were reported from Kansas.
