The situation in Houston in the wake of Hurricane Harvey continues to grow more and more dire by the day, as refugees struggle to find food and shelter, while new threats loom such as a major levee breach that put the area south of the city in serious jeopardy on Tuesday. Houstonians are far from being out of the woods, and many are understandably doing whatever they can as a means to survive.
And yes, in some cases this means “looting” for food and other supplies. While reporting on the catastrophe in Houston, ABC News’ World News Tonight chief national correspondent Tom Llamas noted that he witnessed some individuals looting from a large supermarket, as well as police discovering a dead body nearby.
#Breaking We're witnessing looting right now at a large supermarket in the NE part of Houston & police have just discovered a body nearby
— Tom Llamas (@LlamasNBC) August 29, 2017
And then he tweeted this, which has since been deleted:
The ratio of how you know when you’ve sent a bad tweet was in full effect (when the number of replies vastly outnumbers the number of retweets and likes), as thousands immediately piled on Llamas to point out that maybe he wasn’t being totally sympathetic to victims. Others mentioned that maybe this isn’t the best use of police resources and that the food was likely going to be thrown out anyway — some more humorously than others, and you can see from the top replies.
https://twitter.com/fart/status/902586631990812672
https://twitter.com/InternetHippo/status/902585954757742592
I hope these people without the means to evacuate get shot on sight for taking things left by people with means and coverd by insurance
-Tom— Spencer L. Hicks (@SpencerLenox) August 29, 2017
Hi Tom, the city has asked us to only call 911 for life-threatening emergencies. I'm sure you were very scared but this wasn't one.
— Robert Anderson 🐀 (@thatdarnedbob) August 29, 2017
https://twitter.com/EoinHiggins_/status/902580437729648642
https://twitter.com/ParkerMolloy/status/902589754906202114
Maybe these people are just hungry, desperate, and don't have access to their money.
Are they taking tvs or something??— Robert Flores (@RoFlo) August 29, 2017
https://twitter.com/pattymo/status/902592658190815232
https://twitter.com/Ethan_Booker/status/902590169211076608
https://twitter.com/IanKennethJones/status/902586939144101890
https://twitter.com/StelliniTweets/status/902580975909167104
thank goodness, now that food can stay where it belongs – in a flooded supermarket where its gonna have to be thrown out soon anyway
— time abolitionist 🚤🚤 (@aflightybroad) August 29, 2017
Llamas eventually attempted to defend himself with a screenshot of the original tweet, writing: “Let me clear this up–we were w/police who had discovered a dead body & mentioned we saw ppl w/faces covered going into a supermarket nearby.” Although, that doesn’t exactly clarify anything.
Let me clear this up–we were w/police who had discovered a dead body & mentioned we saw ppl w/faces covered going into a supermarket nearby pic.twitter.com/bfM5WCCO1e
— Tom Llamas (@LlamasNBC) August 29, 2017
It’s amazing how quickly one tweet can go so horribly, horribly bad, and it looks like Llamas learned his lesson the hard way with this one.