Westfield police issued a familiar warning around Halloween time — a report of a razor blade found in candy.
Westfield’s advisory, issued on Facebook following Westfield’s PumpkinFest on Saturday, said the department received a report that a woman found a wrapped razor blade within the candy her child collected at the festival.
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“The Westfield Police are unable to prove or disprove this allegation,” Westfield police wrote in the statement. “In an abundance of caution, if you attended Pumpkin Fest today, please thoroughly inspect any candy you collected.”
Comments on the post both thanked the woman for coming forward and questioned the credibility of the report.
- “Every single year since the history of ever we have had multiple reports of cases like this and never has it ever ended up being true,” wrote one commenter. “I really hope this is the case here too!”
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“She’s a mother of young children and this is not a funny joke,” another commenter wrote. “I think we should thank this woman for bringing this high safety issue to our attention.”
For decades, allegations of razor blades in candy or a newer version of candy replaced by cannabis edibles has persisted. But a national expert who has studied the topic for nearly 40 years said there never was much weight to it.
Joel Best, a professor of sociology and criminal justice at the University of Delaware, said incidents of candy maliciously laced with needles, razor blades, poisons or drugs are practically nonexistent. Those that are reported are often recanted as the story falls apart into a hoax.
