There were no arrests or charges, but it amounted to massive felony theft Saturday when the national electronic benefit transfer (EBT) network failed, briefly enabling federal Food Stamp recipients at two Walmart stores in Louisiana to walk away with cartloads of free groceries.

Shelves at the Walmarts in Springhill and Mansfield, La., were stripped bare within two hours Saturday when the stores allowed purchases on EBT cards even though the cards weren’t showing any cash balances.

Police were called in to restore order after the EBT network was back and running properly. Many customers simply abandoned their full carts when the glitch-spurred frenzy came to a sudden end.

Xerox, which operates the EBT system, said the network went down in several states when a power outage interrupted a routine backup test in one of the company’s locations. In spite of the official explanation, it was difficult not to link by assumption the network failure to the ongoing federal shutdown — and threat of an impending default on federal debt.

News reports from Louisiana quoted Springhill Police Chief Will Lynd describing the chaos as “worse than any black Friday” he’d ever seen.

The cards stopped showing limits around 7 p.m. and the store managers called corporate Walmart, which advised them to accept the cards anyway, Lynd said. From 7 to 9 p.m., people loaded up their carts; but around 9 p.m., when the stores announced the card balances were back online, people just left their carts full of food in the aisles and left. One woman was detained because she rang up a $700 bill and had only 49 cents on her card. Corporate Walmart declined to press charges if she left the food.

Reports indicate a huge mess was left behind. Store employees worked all night returning prepackaged and nonperishable items to store shelves. It’s unclear whether meats, fresh produce and other perishable items could be restocked.

It’s alarming and disconcerting to observe an assumed, widespread sense of entitlement among EBT recipients to grab as much benefit as they can. It’s a simple case of knowing right from wrong, but doing wrong anyway — with the expectation of getting away with it.

More alarming is that Walmart’s corporate reaction mirrors that of its EBT customers. A spokesman for Walmart would not say whether the discount chain would absorb the loss or demand payment from the federal government. It’s notable that select Walmart stores report SNAP food stamp benefits account for 25 percent to 40 percent of their total income.

The simple truth is, we taxpayers finance the EBT system that helps enrich Walmart and other major grocery chains while feeding tens of millions of Americans, including many Walmart employees.

Even more alarming yet would be if Walmart adopts its reaction in two stores as national policy if the EBT system goes down again. Imagine the buying frenzy going coast to coast — with police called to every store to help maintain order.

Think it couldn’t happen? Consider how quickly word got out at the two stores involved in the free-for-all, and the degree to which we’re all connected via social media, regardless of our social or economic status.

That’s an alarming prospect.