Adults Behaving Badly: Violent Black Friday Mobs Across the Nation, Woman Pepper Sprays Children (video)
Posted By Vicki McClure Davidson on November 26, 2011
Violence across the nation erupted outside and inside stores as mobs of early-morning Christmas shoppers participated in Black Friday shopping
By the time my daughter and I pulled up to our local WalMart in Arizona around 7 am on Black Friday to do some Christmas shopping, all of the crazies had thankfully come and gone.
Across the nation, there have been widespread reports of violence and mayhem from many of the Black Friday mobs that gathered for hours (or days) outside large stores waiting to enter to buy advertised Black Friday discounted items.
A disgraceful, sorry state of affairs to save a few bucks. They must be pulling a few pages from the Occupy Wall Street playbook. Merry Christmas.
This first video captured the insanity of the huge crowd for the Black Friday midnight opening of Urban Outfitters in the Thousand Oaks Mall in California.
Black Friday Crowd Rushing into Urban Outfitters | November 2011
Raw Video, Telegraph TV: Shootings Outside Bay Area in California Overshadow US Black Friday Shopping Bonanza
From LA Times, Black Friday shooting outside Bay Area Wal-Mart injures one person:
A victim remains in critical but stable condition after would-be robbers shot and wounded a Black Friday shopper outside a Bay Area Wal-Mart early Friday morning.
Three or four suspects pulled up next to three to four shoppers standing near their car in the parking lot around 1:05 a.m., said Sgt. Mike Sobek of the San Leandro Police Department. The suspects demanded merchandise, and when the victims refused to hand it over, one suspect opened fire.
The shoppers who were not wounded detained one of the suspects for police, Sobek said.
It remains unclear if the detained suspect was the shooter. Sobek said authorities are interviewing the suspect this morning. He added that surveillance video of the parking lot may assist the investigation.
San Leandro is a suburban East Bay city of about 85,000 people just south of Oakland.
CBS Pittsburgh reported on a Black Friday brawl at Victoria’s Secret at Monroeville Mall.
More Black Friday madness…
WOOD TV News, Violence at Stores on Black Friday 2011
A woman in San Fernando Valley, California reportedly pepper sprayed at least 20 people, including children, to clear the way so she could buy an XBox 360 that was on sale at Wal-Mart. In the confusion and panic that ensued, she managed to escape arrest and leave the store. Police are still looking for her.
Fox News – Woman in California Pepper Sprays Children to Get XBox 360 on Black Friday 2011
News report of the heinous pepper spray incident, reported by Los Angeles Times, Customers hit by pepper spray at Wal-Mart describe scene of chaos:
Matthew Lopez went to the Wal-Mart in Porter Ranch on Thursday night for the Black Friday sale but instead was caught in a pepper-spray attack by a woman who authorities said was “competitive shopping.”
Lopez described a chaotic scene in the San Fernando Valley store among shoppers looking for video games soon after the sale began.
“I heard screaming and I heard yelling,” said Lopez, 18. “Moments later, my throat stung. I was coughing really bad and watering up.”
Lopez said customers were already in the store when a whistle signaled the start of the Black Friday sale at 10 p.m., sending shoppers hurtling in search of deeply discounted items.
Lopez said that by the time he arrived at the video games, the display had been torn down. Employees attempted to hold back the scrum of shoppers and pick up merchandise even as customers trampled the video games and DVDs strewn on the floor.
“It was absolutely crazy,” he said.
Another customer said screams erupted after about 100 people waiting in line to snag Xbox gaming consoles and Wii video games got into a shoving match.
Alejandra Seminario, 24, said she was waiting in line to grab some toys at the store around 9:55 p.m. when people the next aisle over started shouting and ripping at the plastic wrap encasing gaming consoles, which was supposed to be opened at 10 p.m.
“People started screaming, pulling and pushing each other, and then the whole area filled up with pepper spray,” the Sylmar resident said. “I guess what triggered it was people started pulling the plastic off the pallets and then shoving and bombarding the display of games. It started with people pushing and screaming because they were getting shoved onto the boxes.”
The pepper spray wafted through the air, Seminario said, and she breathed some in and started coughing. Her face also started itching.
“I did not want to get involved. I was too scared. I just stayed in the toy aisle,” she said.
In Fresno, California, police had to use night sticks to fight back the stampeding mob. PlayStation game systems were reportedly poached, shoppers were trampled, and two were arrested for the trampling before the day was over.
Black Friday Riot over PS3 Sale in California – November 25, 2011
In Buckeye, Arizona, a controversial brawl at a WalMart led to a grandfather reportedly being knocked unconscious when he was knocked to the floor by county police.
From CNN, Grandfather injured, arrested in Walmart brawl:
An Arizona man lay handcuffed and non-responsive on the floor of a Walmart on Black Friday, as his emotional grandson stood nearby.
Jerald Newman, 54, spent Friday night in a Maricopa County jail hours after being arrested for allegedly resisting arrest and shoplifting, according to the county sheriff’s department.
But the suspect’s family members, as well as at least one witness, said the man is innocent and that the treatment was unnecessary.
Newman’s daughter said that she, her father and other family members were in the packed Buckeye, Arizona, store soon after it opened late Thursday night.
“They were just letting people in; there was nowhere to walk,” Berneta Sanchez told CNN. “And teenagers and adults were fighting for these games, taking them away from little kids and away from my father.”
The grandson, Nicholas Nava, told CNN affiliate KNXV that Newman had grabbed one video game and put it under his shirt so that others jostling for the game didn’t take it from him. One person alerted a police officer, who then approached Newman.
David Chadd, a CNN iReporter from Las Vegas, was among those shopping for video games set up in the Walmart’s grocery section in a mass of people. He said Newman “was not resisting” arrest as he was led away from the crowd by a police officer.
The officer, Chadd said, then suddenly hooked the suspect around the leg, grabbed him and “slammed him face first into the ground.”
“It was like a bowling ball hitting the ground, that’s how bad it was,” he said.
That was around when Sanchez said she heard of the altercation from across the store and ran toward her father.
“I was fuming,” she recalled upon seeing her father on the floor. “They wouldn’t let me near him at all, they were telling me to stay back.”
Video, recorded by Chadd and later posted on CNN’s iReport, shows an apparently unconscious Newman head-down on the floor in a pool of blood. As he’s turned over, Buckeye police officers appear to attempt to revive him — at which point his face, covered mostly in blood, is revealed.
A homemade recording of the news report about the Arizona Black Friday brawl.
FOX 10 News, Black Friday Arizona WalMart Brawl, Jerald Newman Slammed to Ground
More insanity…
WalMart Black Friday Mob Rush: Greenville, North Carolina | November 25, 2011
‘Mini Riot’ Fighting Over a $2 Waffle Maker in WalMart Near Little Rock, Arkansas – November 25, 2011
Black Friday 2011 Craziness at Macy’s, New York Herald Square
From Salisbury Post, Black Friday shoppers say ‘no way’ to the hassles:
Today’s headlines about violence at Black Friday sales from coast to coast are proof of why many shoppers are saying “no, thanks” to doorbuster deals and late-night sales.
For all those who crowded malls and shopping centers before dawn waiting for advertised bargains, many more seemed content to stay far, far away.
Courtney Alexander said she worked Friday from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. at a shoe store in Concord Mills. She asked that the Post not name her employer.
Alexander said she thinks fear — of not finding the right gift, or that there won’t be enough — drives crowds to malls on Black Friday.
“I heard horror stories,” she said, “fights, quarrels over parking.”
She even said one customer threw a shoebox at her when the line didn’t move quickly enough.
Even if she didn’t have to work, Alexander said, she wouldn’t shop at malls on Black Friday.
“I do mine a little bit at a time,” she said.
Many times, Alexander said, she’ll make her own gifts.
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