Once a year on black Friday, people flock to shopping mall parking lots across the country to take part in America’s favorite sport. Competitive shopping. Fully loaded with a belly of turkey and wine, deal seekers fight, claw, stampede, and occasionally pepper spray their opponents in order to win the opportunity to pay for things.
A woman at a Walmart in San Fernando Valley used mace against 20 other shoppers after a scuffle broke out on Thursday night. CBS reports that the incident occurred shortly after the Walmart opened for Black Friday at 10:20 pm.
One shopper said:
“People started screaming, pulling and pushing each other, and then the whole area filled up with pepper spray.”
According to the Los Angeles Times, the “competitive shopping” incident occurred in the video game aisle. Apparently the woman was trying to get a competitive edge on the other customers.
In the woman’s defense, Walmart was selling a blue Wii for less than $100. Clearly a good enough deal to justify an attack on fellow customers. I mean opponents.
Another customer said:
“I heard screaming and I heard yelling. Moments later, my throat stung. I was coughing really bad and watering up.”
The LA Times reports that despite the pepper-spray incident, the Black Friday sale at Wal-Mart continued. One customer, who arrived an hour after the pepper spray incident, went into the store with a “pepper spray schmepper spray attitude. The woman said:
“I don’t care. I’m still getting my TV. I’ve never seen Wal-Mart so crazy, but I guess it could have been worse.”
Next year, let’s keep “competitive shopping” where it belongs. On TV.
Did you attend a Black Friday sale? Did you have to fight for your deals?
ALL WALMART SHOPPERS ARE ANIMALS! BUY CHEAP CRAP MADE OVERSEAS YOU GET ANIMALS.
This is why I don't do black Friday!
I hope this pig-dog goes to jail.
Friggin' Idiots!!!! I hope they catch that insane woman!!!
Our local Wal-Mart was actually open on Thanksgiving Day so there was no stampede going through the door. It was quite comical to see everyone standing around the pallets of merchandise with a hand on a box waiting for 10 PM to arrive. There were some smaller items that the store just let people take and put in their buggies but in order to get the sale price you had to wait to checkout until 10 PM. We grabbed a small appliance (under $20.00) and went through the self checkout by 10:05 PM, got home in time to catch the evening news and got a good night's sleep. Thursday morning went to BJ's (warehouse type store) at 7:00 AM and walked right up to the TV & electronics. Asked the sales associate where the TV was that we wanted to purchase and he told us the man behind us was walking out with the last one, but they were offering another model (same size 55" but with more features like 3D and it included two pairs of 3D glasses) for the same price, and a deeper discount ($1200.00 INSTANT rebate. Yes, you read that right, the cost of the TV, AFTER the rebate? $1100.00.) We loaded it onto the cart and walked around the corner to pick up the accompanying surround sound system for another tremendous discount ($70.00 off), and they threw in the WI-FI adapter for FREE (another $70.00 in savings). We walked out of the store spending $1426.00 (taxes included) and enjoyed a TOTAL SAVINGS of $1390.00. Unheard of! If you know what you are looking for, sometimes the Shopping Gods shine down on you! We went home, had a delicious Black Friday breakfast and kept walking outside to marvel at the great deal we just got. Not one foot was trampled on, no pepper spraying or cursing was had and we will be spending the evening enjoying egg nog and setting up the system. If you go out shopping with the right attitude-remembering the Reason for the Season-it can be done and it can be fun….. Merry Christmas!
The issue that exists: The jerks that are in control of WalMart do not shop their own company so they do not understand what happens on days like today and they are not in touch with their regular customers like Sam was. They do not care about their customers other than to remove their last dollar from their pockets. Solution: Crowd control. Open stores at midnight to the first 200-300 customers for 1 hour and then they must leave. Repeat this process until all lines outside the store have vanished.
This is crazy!
That's why I don't go shopping on black friday even though.
I am off. Its not worth it.
they keep on saying "open the doors" for black Friday. Were some Walmarts closed? Mine wasn't closed at all and the Xbox kinect console that was on sale, it was advertised with a $50 gift card in the sales ad and my store wouldn't sell it to the customers with the $50 gift card. one customer got really upset that she couldn't get the $50 card. but she had every right to be upset, if something is advertised in an ad and I think you should get it, otherwise its false advertising.