Welcome to Day 4 of the Blogging A-Z April Challenge, 2013! Each day in April (except Sundays) I will be posting here, and the posts will be in alphabetical order! This blog is all about my love of Halloween. I'm not into gore, so don't expect to see a lot of that. I love exploring cemeteries, so several of those will be featured, as well as props I have made and other ideas I've admired on the Halloween Forum and Haunt Forum and Pinterest.
For some shameless self-promotion, I have 2 other blogs in the challenge, too. Check them out!
Random Ramblings - lives up to its name. Totally random.
The Life of Lisa - health & weight loss related
The Life of Lisa - health & weight loss related
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Devil's Night is what we in the Detroit area call the night of October 30. This started to get serious in the 70s when arson, vandalism and other criminal acts were the "cool" thing to do. 1984 saw a 800+ fires set throughout the city in those 3 days before Halloween!!
1994 was a particularly horrible year, so in 1995 Mayor Dennis Archer came up with Angel's Night. 40,000+ volunteers patrol the streets, keeping in contact with a control center during the nights of October 29 - 30. This is an extremely effective program, with arson and vandalism seeing dramatic decreases. In 2009, there were only 68 arson fires!
Only once was this cancelled, in 2005 when Miss Rosa Parks passed away. Surprisingly - it stayed calm in Detroit. Criminal acts still happened in Flint and Toledo.
Devil's Night has been mentioned in several movies.
*The Crow (set in Detroit)
*Grosse Pointe Blank (a 'burb of Detroit)
*Left For Dead (the plot is based on Devil's Night)
*and is referenced in 8 Mile (set in Detroit)
source 1
source 2
I've never heard of Devil's Night. I too love Halloween and I have a scary blog, but it's only scary to those who fear death.
ReplyDeleteGood luck with the AtoZ!
As a kid, I thought this was something that happened everywhere. I guess it's not as widespread as I thought.
DeleteI LOVE the idea of citizens patrolling and keeping things safe with watchful eyes. So awesome!
ReplyDeleteThat was the best idea! The police can't be everywhere, so it helped a lot for the residents to openly be patrolling.
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