Word: copycat
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...difficult to say for sure if this week's events are part of a sustained dissident campaign of civic disruption or simply acts of sporadic, copycat violence. Either way, the individuals behind this new threat to Northern Ireland's increasingly fragile peace have clearly studied their history books. A similar campaign of low-level, civic disruption by the Provisional IRA in the late 1960s and 1970s led to the mass deployment of British troops on Northern Irish streets and triggered one of the bloodiest periods in the 30-year sectarian conflict known as the Troubles. (See pictures of new hope...
...tampering inspired hundreds of copycat incidents across the U.S. The Food and Drug Administration tallied more than 270 different incidents of product tampering in the month following the Tylenol deaths. Pills tainted with everything from rat poison to hydrochloric acid sickened people around the country. Some copycats expanded to food tampering: that Halloween, parents reported finding sharp pins concealed in candy corn and candy bars. Some communities banned trick-or-treating all together...
...measurable, positive impact, however: a revolution in product safety standards. In the wake of the Tylenol poisonings, pharmaceutical and food industries dramatically improved their packaging, instituting tamperproof seals and indicators and increasing security controls during the manufacturing process. The result has been a dramatic reduction in the number of copycat incidents - although it may be of little solace to the families of the seven killed in Chicago. But now, as the FBI brings modern technology to bear on a case long gone cold, perhaps they can hope again for something else tangible: at long last, some criminal charges...
Maybe, but unlike Royal, Sarkozy (and copycat Obama) won their presidential bids and don't spend their time plotting revenge. "The real problem with this book is, it will horrify Sarkozy backers, thrill her own - and lead most in the middle asking what Royal could have been thinking when she wrote it," Reynié says. "If further dividing the left and uniting the right around Sarkozy is Royal's strategy for beating him, it certainly is unconventional...
...related," but he has not repeated that statement in other news reports. Eggleston refused to confirm the gang connection on Monday, but he did say the fires are clearly the work of more than one arsonist. He wouldn't speculate, though, on whether they were coordinated events or unrelated copycat incidents. "We don't want to divulge the information we have, especially to the media, because the bad guys read the paper too," he said. (Read a 1972 TIME cover story on gangs...