Cops Repeatedly Called to Gruesome Halloween Display

Dallas man used 20 gallons of fake blood
By Rob Quinn,  Newser Staff
Posted Oct 28, 2020 2:26 PM CDT

Steve Novak says that out of all the blood-spattered Halloween decorations outside his Dallas home, he's "most proud of the wheelbarrow tipped over by the street full of Hefty bags, looking like a failed attempt to dispose of the dismembered bodies in the middle of the night." A video on his Facebook page shows other dummies on his lawn and porch amid prodigious quantities of fake blood. But not everybody is a fan: Novak tells the Dallas Observer that police have arrived on more than one occasion because of the display. He says they told him they "thought it was cool and that they were only there because they were required to reply to complaints from the sergeant." He says he used around 20 gallons of fake blood and during recent heavy rains, he took care to "water" the display with fresh blood in the mornings.

Novak tells NBC-DFW that he has been setting up Halloween displays gruesome enough to attract police attention for years. He says he almost skipped it this year because of the pandemic. But "all of my neighbors were begging me to," he says. "So it did kind of seem important, that people wanted some festivities." Elsewhere in Texas, a Houston-area woman has clashed with a homeowner's association over her lawn display, which features a strip club scene with a trio of pole-dancing skeletons. Richmond homeowner Angela Nava tells the Houston Chronicle that the association sent her a letter Sunday that said the pole-dancing skeletons were "offensively positioned" and ordered her to take the "inappropriate" display down within 30 days. She says she plans to comply—after Halloween. (More Halloween stories.)

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