As she walked the aisles, MR said in an interview, she sensed a man standing close behind her. She turned to confront him and noticed that he was a good six inches taller than her. He was talking in graphic detail about sexual things he wanted to do to her. “You’re so disgusting, get away from me,” she told him, and hurried off to find her friend.
Still, he stayed close, and for a few tense minutes the two of them locked eyes while she waited in line to pay. When at last he left, she thought that was the end of it – until, back outside in the chill of the winter morning, she felt something cold against the back of her leggings.
The man had ejaculated on her.
“I didn’t know how to react. I wanted to kill this man,” said MR, who was 47 at the time, recalling the horror and helplessness she felt as her friend wiped her off with towels. (The Guardian has verified MR’s identity but is not publishing her full name to protect her privacy.)
Hours later, on the advice of a sister who worked in law enforcement, she fished her soiled leggings out of the garbage and took them back to the store to report what had happened. A clerk listened to her account and, not seeming to realize that MR understood Spanish, shouted to a colleague in a backroom: “Tenemos otra.”
“We’ve got another one.”
There were 16 reported cases over a year and a half nationwide.
This article is complete rage bait.
Only 16, hm?
Lol, and we’re getting a preview of the “plethora of stupid arguments” in the comments.
But seriously, they explicitly mention that they “take physical security seruously” and they absolutely do not. Like there’s a really clear reason this place is being targeted for this shit. Because they have narrow aisles that you can’t see around and views are blocked from cameras and cashiers at the front.
Also, THESE POOR CASHIERS! I know they’re not getting paid enough to 1v1 a serial masturbator. There’s often just one person.
Exactly! They also staff really low so there’s not enough employees to properly see what’s happening through the store.
You refuted their statememt with data that encompasses sex crimes other than the one in this article.
You then went on to quote the source they likely used for 16 incidents like this one:
Congratulations on being rage baited into attacking people that oppose this disgusting behavior, I guess.
No shit, they’re looking at a pattern. Of course journalists are going to dig for similar cases and not just report on this single incident.
Read the full article before coming at me.
Yes, there is a pattern of 16 incidents like the one in the article. 63 total, it says. There are 9,064 Dollar Tree stores. That’s a 0.7% occurrence rate.
Please, stop attacking people for being rational about the rate of occurence.
I’m not attacking someone by presenting facts from the article.
You’re asserting that they were incorrect when they were using numbers straight from the article.
Does no one here read an entire article before commenting?
Sometimes articles include more facts and figures, but you have to read them to find out what they are.
Like how this is an emerging trend. The investigation has only scratched the surface of reported incidents.
0.7% is not an emerging trend. That is reported incidents across all 9,000+ stores, which I believe it also said was the total for 5 years.
Quick napkin math using last years’ total sales and using $50 as the average transaction gets 340,000,000 for a very rough estimate of total transactions. That amounts to 0.000018% of shoppers reporting sexual assault.
Where do you see any opposition to the sexual assaults from the person saying that 16 cases isn’t enough to be so upset about and everyone who feels strongly about this happening has fallen for rage bait?
Have you noticed how you’re more upset with people taking issue with 16 sexual assault cases in a year and a half than you are that there’s a demonstrated trend of sexually assaulting specific people?
And because you think that’s too few sexual assaults to care about too, which is a whole other can of worms of an implication.