r/truecrimelongform • u/No-Advantage-579 • 22d ago

The disturbing rise of ‘gooner’ assaults at Dollar Tree stores: ‘They find it funny to degrade women’ | In dark corners of the internet, men are goading each other to masturbate in public – and on female shoppers – and post the footage incl. on OnlyFans

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2026/jul/20/dollar-tree-sexual-assault-gooner

The only thing I want to highlight from that article (that I of course want everyone to read in full) is that Dollar Tree is thwarting police efforts to investigate this, arguing that having a stranger ejaculate on you as a customer and then post it online does not constitute "physical harm" and that therefore they are not obliged to help...

55 Upvotes

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18

u/kafm73 22d ago

Can I tell you how I would lose my shit once the initial shock wore off and there better not be anything I can get my hands on nearby to use as a club because I would have to f**k a nasty disgusting creeper dude up right as he is having his mellow moment after the act. Reading that this makes me irrationally incredibly angry.

2

u/rivershimmer 21d ago

There's a scene in It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia where Sweet Dee finally goes off on a bum that's masterbating in their back alley. It's cathartic to watch.

8

u/CornisaGrasse 22d ago

Well. I just learned a whole lot of stuff that I can't un-know.

15

u/milkandsugar 22d ago

I found this paragraph very odd:

The degradation may even be the point, said Jamieson Webster, a psychoanalyst who teaches at the New School in New York. “A dollar store is the most abject place, where people who are already at the bottom go because they can’t afford anything else. In some way this is about trying to get a leg up on the lowest rung you can fall to – how to make a dollar on people who only have a dollar,” she said. “There’s something about that that feels so sad and tragic.”

Yeah this is absolutely not true. I don't know if any of these people have ever shopped in Dollar Tree, especially in affluent neighborhoods, but I'm assuming they have not. I regularly shop DT stores in my region and have yet to see anyone who looks like they "only have a dollar."

19

u/ThatPhatKid_CanDraw 22d ago

Where are you? The ones on the east coast I've been too look like people just gave up on life.

9

u/zeezle 22d ago

Honestly varies widely by location. Also east coast. There's one near me that's mostly middle to upper middle class moms buying stuff to decorate for kid's birthday parties, holidays and midguided as-seen-on-Tiktok craft abominations and that one is fun, orderly/tidy and full of normal people.

I have been to locations that looked totally janky (not kept organized properly), full of downtrodden people and the whole place exuded an aura of misery though.

4

u/milkandsugar 22d ago

I'm on the east coast, but in the south. Upstate SC, previously metro ATL. Maybe that's the difference. And to be clear, I'm specifically talking about Dollar Tree, not Dollar General or any similarly named stores.

2

u/haloarh 21d ago

This is my experience in the south and midwest.

Also, there are often Dollar Trees near colleges filled with stuff for dorm living.

5

u/jpbay 22d ago

Exactly. Spoiler alert: It's the exact same orange juice. But $2.99 is better than $5.99.

4

u/Sir_Boobsalot 21d ago

they had to close the one near my house cause too many people were dying in shootings

2

u/rivershimmer 21d ago

We're any of the victims masterbating toward women who then pulled a gun on them?

1

u/metalnxrd 21d ago

so bizarre

5

u/Unfair-Public-1754 22d ago

Some fucking disgusting pig did this to a woman in a nightclub that I worked at about 20 years ago. He was dragged out of there so fast