Word: nighting
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...exact origin of Devil's Night is unclear. People who grew up in Detroit following World War II recall kids plastering cars with toilet paper, and tossing onto porches fiery paper bags filled with feces. Huge swaths of this city burned during the 1967 riots, leaving the kind of blighted property that experts say lures prospective arsonists. John Hall, a researcher at the National Fire Prevention Association, said the presence of so many vacant properties presented the ingredients for what's known as "the broken windows syndrome." He says "when people see a collection of abandoned properties in one location...
...biggest Halloween danger of all is car accidents. Children are more than twice as likely to be killed by a car while walking on Halloween night than at any other time of the year, according to a study by Safe Kids USA. Such tragedies are often preventable. Parents can make sure that costumes aren't too long, shoes don't make a child prone to tripping and masks don't restrict their vision. And parents of young children should accompany them on the walk around the neighborhood to keep them safe. "A lot of kids don't know the right...
...dying auto industry, failing schools, rampant unemployment and a home foreclosure crisis: Detroit has no shortage of ills, but in recent years it has made progress combating the city's notorious tradition known as Devil's Night, the period leading up Halloween each year when scores of buildings would be torched. Yet earlier this month, when nearly a dozen vacant homes were set afire in the span of a weekend, authorities here feared the worst: The real estate crisis that has hit Detroit particularly hard would mean a resurgence of Devil's Night. (See pictures from the fight against Devil...
...1990s, then-mayor Dennis Archer Sr. tried to rebrand the Halloween period "Angels' Night." His police chief at the time, Isaiah McKinnon, recalls getting at least 30,000 people to turn on the lights of their homes and patrol their neighborhood's streets, to deter prospective arsonists. It worked: incidents of arsons fell sharply. "You felt a sense of relief," McKinnon says...
...Among the groups trying to thwart any new wave of arson in Detroit this Halloween is Blight Busters, which expects some 500 volunteers to patrol Friday night in one of this city's neighborhoods. In recent years, the group says it has torn down some 300 abandoned homes. Says John George, executive director of Blight Busters: "We now celebrate Detroit on Angels' Night...