The answer to security is year-round Toys for Tots.

At about 1:15 p.m. on 26 November 2010 (which was the day after Thanksgiving, better known as “Black Friday”), those manning the surveillance cameras at a Best Buy in Augusta, Georgia, spotted a shopper cutting a Dell laptop computer from its packaging and stuffing it down his pants. According to police, store security personnel approached the suspect, 39-year-old Tracey Attaway of Waynesboro, Georgia, and asked him to return the merchandise. Attaway became angry, released the laptop, and ran out the front door, pulling a knife and knocking down a Best Buy employee in the process.

Outside the store’s entrance were four Marines and seven volunteers collecting donations for Toys for Tots. One of the former group, Cpl. Phillip Duggan, clotheslined the running man, bringing him to the ground. The assailant regained his feet and swung his knife, stabbing Duggan, then was quickly tackled by several other Marines and members of the store’s loss-prevention team, who held him in the parking lot until deputies arrived.

The injured Marine was taken to Eisenhower Army Medical Center and released after receiving three stitches. He was well enough the next day to drop off a toy for donation at a nearby WalMart store.

Cpl. Duggan’s attacker, Tracey Attaway, was jailed and charged with armed robbery, aggravated assault, and possession of a knife in the commission of a crime, and in October 2011 he was sentenced to life in prison. (Attaway faced the maximum sentence on all assault and theft charges because he was a convicted felon with 30 prior arrests on his record.)