Lubbock Restaurant Sparks Viral Outrage With Halloween Decoration

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Lubbock's Capital Pizza has sparked a viral outrage due to a Halloween decoration. The story has even made it to TMZ with the spicy and somewhat misleading headline, "JEFFREY DAHMER PIZZA FINGER AND EYEBALL TOPPINGS!?! TX Spot Dishing Controversy"

The pizza is not a menu item, but rather, just a decoration. But is it just a decoration? 

My uncles grew up in Brownfield, Texas. They were friends with a 17-year-old girl named Dianna Bryant. There is some question as to who actually murdered her, but the infamous serial killer Henry Lee Lucas confessed to her slaying.

I cannot help but wonder- how would they feel if some pizza place put up a de facto shrine to Henry Lee Lucas? Would they be offended or hurt? Would it open up the wound her violent death inflicted on them? I cannot speak for them, but I can imagine how they would feel, and it doesn't feel very good.

Dianna was murdered in 1981. My uncles are still very much alive. It's rather recent history. Jeffery Dahmer's murders took place between 1978 and 1991. Again, recent history. Many of those family and friends are still alive, and still attempting to heal.

Of course, I could be overthinking it. Perhaps they don't think they are doing any harm. But that brings up the age-old question: does intent matter if the action does cause harm? I don't have a concrete answer for that- it's philosophical. I also can't say if anyone was hurt by this decoration as I have obviously not spoken to any of the victim's family or friends.

I watched all ten episodes of Dahmer on Netflix. I felt the show was a masterpiece. It was nuanced, historically accurate down to even clothing, and gave the victim's perspective a huge chunk of the run-time. The whole point of the show was that Dahmer was a gross, evil creep that was able to fumble his way through 17 murders because of police inattention and inadequacy. His victims were marginalized people- mostly POC and gay. What happened was an unforgivable tragedy.

Dahmer, unlike Mike Meyers or Freddy Krueger, was a real person. His victims were real people, too. They say tragedy plus time equals comedy, but who decides how much time? I won't presume to do so.

Here's one of many Tiktok videos about the decoration. I chose it because the way the guy mispronounces Lubbock IS funny: