In dark corners of the internet, men are goading each other to masturbate in public – and on female shoppers – and post the footage

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.”

  • velma@sh.itjust.worksOP
    32·
    4 days ago

    Greenberg and Blizzard believe the Dollar Tree gooner phenomenon can shed further light on these issues and offer an opportunity to address some of them. In MR’s lawsuit and a similar case in San Diego, their legal filings argue that Dollar Tree should have had more staff and security, should have alerted the police to the sharking episodes on its premises and should have issued a warning to shoppers.

    In the San Diego case, Greenberg and Blizzard found eyewitness and photographic evidence that the same perpetrator had masturbated and ejaculated on another woman in the same store one day before – and returned six days later to assault a third victim. “Dollar Tree did nothing,” they and a team of California lawyers allege in court papers. Dollar Tree did not respond to questions about this accusation.

    The lawyers saw what they allege to be a similar corporate disregard for shopper safety in a case they read about in Knoxville, Tennessee, where a Dollar Tree employee named Collin Miller was caught on camera as he masturbated in front of customers in November 2024. “The [security] video shows the defendant with his penis exposed as he walks past the register where the victim is checking out,” a police report quoted by a local TV station said. “The video also later shows the defendant rubbing his groin area for several minutes at the register while customers are present in the store.”

    Although Miller pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of indecent exposure, he was not fired. And then, eight months later, he was accused of following a family around the store with a camera and taking surreptitious photographs up the 16-year-old daughter’s skirt. Once again, the police investigated and, according to media reports, found 25,000 compromising images of women on his phone. He subsequently pleaded guilty to two counts of unlawful photographing in violation of privacy. Dollar Tree did not respond to questions about the case and Miller’s employment status.

    I expect them to at least fire employees when they masturbate in front of customers and have tens of thousands of photographs of children’s upskirts.