Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has a message for anyone thinking about looting in the wake of Hurricane Idalia: “You loot, we shoot.” DeSantis made the comment during a press conference on Wednesday.
“I’d also just remind potential looters – you never know what you’re walking into,” DeSantis, 44, said.
“People have a right to defend their property. This part of Florida, you got a lot of advocates and proponents of the Second Amendment, and I’ve seen signs in different people’s yards in the past after these disasters, and I would say it’s probably here – ‘You loot, we shoot.’”
“I’ve told all of our personnel at the state level, you know, you protect people’s property and we are not going to tolerate any looting in the aftermath of a natural disaster,” DeSantis added.
Watch the clip above.
From The New York Post:
The governor was responding to reports of people trying to loot in Steinhatchee, a town of 537 people in Taylor County, Florida, where the Category 3 storm made landfall.
DeSantis called it “ridiculous” that anyone would try to loot just hours after Idalia’s 125 mph winds and torrential storm surge wreaked havoc on Florida’s Gulf Coast.
DeSantis issued a similar warning last year in the aftermath of Hurricane Ian – a Category 4 storm that made landfall in southwest Florida in September 2022, killing at least 149 people and becoming the costliest storm in state history.
“Don’t even think about looting. Don’t even think about taking advantage of people in this vulnerable situation,” DeSantis said at the time, claiming that some people were “bringing boats” onto storm-ravaged islands and “trying to ransack people’s homes.”
More over at The New York Post:
DeSantis has message for potential looters in wake of Hurricane Idalia: ‘You loot, we shoot’ https://t.co/sxwlTcTGsB pic.twitter.com/xsIaHxseAT
— New York Post (@nypost) August 30, 2023
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