Arsons mark Halloween in Detroit

Press, 2 November 1989, Page 8

Arsons mark Halloween in Detroit

NZPA-AP Detroit Firefighters scrambled from blaze to blaze and the police jailed 165 youths who ignored a curfew imposed for Devil’s Night, Detroit’s three-day Halloween tradition of setting fires. Dozens of blazes flared in rubbish bins and abandoned buildings, and at least five homes burned yesterday. No one was injured. By the end of the night, the number of fires exceeded the 229 set last year, said a city councillor, Mel Ravitz.

“We’ve got to find a way to either re-educate or incarcerate those who engage in this sport,” he said. Halloween, a descendant of the holiday All Hallow’s Eve, is celebrated in most of the United States on October 31 by children who dress as witches, ghosts and other creatures and go from door-to-door through their neighbourhoods, collecting sweets. But the holiday also has a darker side: a tradition of “trick or treat” in which children play tricks on those who don’t offer

sweets. In Detroit, a city suffering from high teenage unemployment and drop-out rates, vandalism has eclipsed the friendly aspects of the holiday. The police and firefighters refused to release a count of the number of fires since Devil’s Night began on Sunday. The police arrested 165 youths yesterday, bringing the number of juveniles arrested since the 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. curfew went into effect to 334, a police spokesman.

Four of those arrested are under investigation for arson, the police said. During curfew, the police are allowed to detain children under age 18 overnight if they are caught on the streets without a parent. Devil’s Night is a decades-old tradition, but youths went from soaping windows to arson about 10 years ago. The blazes peaked in 1984, when firefighters battled 808 blazes in the last three days of October. The number of fires has declined steadily since then.