E-mails sent from the Galveston County Fair and Rodeo coordinator, as well as an e-mail blast from the North County Chamber of Commerce, warned of a gang initiation in which 3 women would be killed or attacked at a local Wal-Mart.

The e-mail from the North Galveston County Chamber reads: "We have received word from one of our members that the Galveston County Sheriff's Dept. has issued a warning for all women tonight. We have not been able to verify this information but want to pass it along for your safety. Even if this is a hoax, we'd rather you be safe.
ALL women need to stay away from shopping at ANY of the Wal-Mart locations tonight. The warning is, a gang initiation is supposed to take place and 3 women will be attacked/assaulted tonight as part of their initiation. "

From the County Fair: We just received a report here at the fair office that there is going to be a gang initiation tonight and that 3 women will be shot at Wal-Mart. This information came from a Santa Fe police officer and was then relayed to us by a reliable source. The officer did say this could be a hoax, but why take a chance. Which Wal-Mart location is not clear; however, I would not go to Wal-Mart tonight.

Be safe!
Melondy D. Bender
Fair Coordinator

Major Ray Tuttoilmondo of the Sheriff's Office got a hold of us Wednesday night to make a point that the e-mail is a hoax and that the they had never issued any warning to anyone. Further, before sending the e-mail out, no one checked with the sheriff's office to see if any bit of the rumor was true, he said.

We had no luck getting a hold of anyone with the chamber Wednesday night.

We spoke with Paul Tibaldo, the president of the Galveston County Fair and Rodeo, who confirmed that Bender did send the e-mail out because she got it from someone else. The information in that e-mail was also not verified with police.

Then we got a phone call from a police officer working security at the Sam's in Texas City. He said employees there were coming up to him asking about the e-mail and said they had gotten text messages warning them too.

Again, the e-mail is bogus. No local law enforcement agency has issued any warnings.

We did some research and found that this e-mail "alert" has been around in some version or another since 2005. Like all bogus e-mail stories, it has just enough information and attributes the report to well placed sources, that are never verified.

People, often with good intentions and without thinking, just forward the e-mails without checking out the information.

Most times the e-mails are ignored, but when organizations that are as respected in the community such as the Fair and Rodeo and the North Galveston County Chamber, send them, well that gets people nervous.

"While we always strongly suggest that people always be aware of their surroundings and things that may be happening around them - for their own safety - there is, to our knowledge, no evidence or official reports that substantiate this as anything but a probable hoax," Tuttoilmondo said. "Neither we nor any other law enforcement agency take such reports lightly. However, there is absolutely no official report of any such potential activity as described below."

It doesn’t mean that the e-mails won’t plant an idea in someone’s head to pull off some sort of stunt at a local Wal-Mart. One need only to catch the latest Internet video rage where kids fake kidnappings in front of big box stores like Wal-Mart to know that people do stupid stuff in this world.

A very good Web site for checking out these type of Internet rumors is Snopes.com. Over the years, these folks have done wonders in ferreting out what's true and what's not about the mass e-mail urban myths.