The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street
CNN is reporting "Stampede in Turin as fans watch soccer game; 1,000-plus injuries"
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It was not known what caused the stampede.
Monica Viscovo, press officer of the Turin (in Northern Italy) state police, said some eyewitnesses reported an explosion. There was also speculation of a fireworks explosion or a firecracker.
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The following is pure speculation: Maybe the panic was triggered by some relatively harmless event that would ordinarily have had little consequence, but the recent terrorist attack in the UK caused an atmosphere of fear that was enough to push the crowd over the edge. If so, it reminds me of the classic Twilight Zone episode titled The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street.
"The tools of conquest do not necessarily come with bombs and explosions and fallout. There are weapons that are simply thoughts, attitudes, prejudices – to be found only in the minds of men. For the record, prejudices can kill – and suspicion can destroy – and a thoughtless frightened search for a scapegoat has a fallout all of its own – for the children – and the children yet unborn. And the pity of it is – that these things cannot be confined – to the Twilight Zone." -- Rod Serling