Unmasked shoppers break Target employee's arm after being told to leave store

A group of unmasked shoppers attacked a Target employee escorting them from the store, reports the Mercury News, breaking his arm and earning themselves battery charges. It's the fourth such incident at the Van Nuys store, and the first to result in serious injury.

The incident occurred on the morning of May 1 in a Target in the San Fernando Valley neighborhood of Van Nuys, the Los Angeles Police Department said. The police released surveillance video of the incident on Monday. Two customers had been ordered to leave the store because they didn't have masks, and security guards were escorting them toward the exit. One of the customers then turned and attacked the guards.

I occasionally blog about the "exonerative tense", a style of news-writing that poses as impartial (or necessary to avoid legal liability) but echoes the weird, implicitly victim-blaming language of police reports. Here's a beauty from CNN today: