It’s a Strange Holiday, Which Makes for Some Strange Security Stories
Today is the day where millions of children go door-to-door extorting their neighbors, adults actively try to terrify children, and Jimmy Kimmel encourages parents to cause their children emotional torment—and it’s all excused as good fun.
Some things that are related to Halloween are much less excusable. We’ll re-engage our usual Strange Security next month, but for this month we’re going to look at five news stories that relate to Halloween—some recent and a few from the not-too-distant past.
As always, our disclaimer: Security is serious and there are victims in these stories. By presenting them here in this fashion, we do not want to diminish the actual pain and suffering these stories caused. And with that, here’s your Halloween edition of strange, security-related incidents.
No Costumes in Sinaloa, Mexico: Last Halloween, the Sinaloa police banned costumes because the combination of cartel violence and easily hidden identities made the holiday unsafe. Dressing as cartel gangsters was an issue in previous years, and the police wanted to avoid the glorification of crime and violence.
Pirate Sneaker Thief: Also last year in the early hours of the morning, surveillance cameras captured a man dressed as a pirate in the New York City subway’s Brook Avenue station beating a man and stealing his sneakers and Airpods. The victim sustained minor injuries but refused medical attention.
Missing Celebrity Pumpkins: Clearing that headline up: the pumpkins were not famous, their owners were famous, none other than celebrities Sarah Jessica Parker and Matthew Broderick. The couple took to Instragram in 2019 to document that their decorative gourds, as well as those from their neighbors, were stolen from their New York City stoops on Halloween. The pumpkin prankster remains at large.
When Halloween Decorations Become Not-So-Veiled Threats: More recently, a man in Powell County, Kentucky, stuffed oversized trash bags with debris and shaped them so they looked like bagged bodies. He put them on his lawn and labelled them with the job titles of local officials, including “mayor,” “district judge,” and “zoning manager.” When he refused to remove the decorations, he was arrested for making terroristic threats.
Prank Lands Poorly: This one hits home, since it occurred approximately 3 miles from ASIS International headquarters. On 14 October 2025, three people in creepy costumes that masked their identity terrorized a home in Alexandria, Virginia. They went to multiple entrances, and it was all caught on home video systems. The attempted invasion was so creepy, the videos had a viral moment. But then the twist: it was actually family members pulling a prank, which did not come to light until after police had spent more than 100 hours investigating the incident.
Parting with some Security Management unofficial 31 October advice: have fun while staying safe. Don’t do stupid things. Stealing pumpkins is rude. Maybe avoid riding the New York City subway at 4 a.m. on Halloween night. Don’t make passive aggressive threats through decorations. And, for goodness sake, let’s have more unicorn costumes and fewer gangster ones—particularly in areas where gangsters terrorize with near impunity.
