Black Friday 2016 Videos Show Brawls, Shopping Madness Across U.S.
Black Friday 2016 videos prove that shoppers across the U.S. are very excited about the start of the holiday shopping season — perhaps a little too excited. Believe it or not, quite a few brawls broke out at various stores across the country this past weekend!
While shoppers tussled over items, as usual, Black Friday fights were not as widespread this year as in previous years. The fights were also less chaotic. Nonetheless, there were some disturbing incidents.
This year, Black Friday started a day earlier with major malls opening their doors for discount sales on Thursday evening.
One of the Black Friday 2016 videos posted on YouTube on Thursday shows a group of women struggling over a box of portable DVD players at a Walmart outlet in Mississippi.
Also on Thursday, a fight broke out among a group of six young men at the Vintage Fair Mall in Modesto, California. It is unclear if the fight was caused by a shopping-related dispute. The incident was reportedly resolved quickly by the mall security. Modesto Police Lt. Steve Stanfied said the people did not receive any reports about the incident. Although the men are see kicking and punching each other repeatedly, it is unclear if any of them sustained serious injuries from the incident.
Other Black Friday 2016 videos showed crazed shoppers dragging items. One video showed shoppers at a mall reportedly in Georgia digging into a pack of towels and heaping them in their shopping carts en masse.
In another video, two men can be seen fighting over what appears to be an electronic device. According to the Daily Caller, the shoppers in Houston were fighting over a battery operated car for kids, which cost $99. The fight between the two men appears to come to an end after the mediation of others.
These Black Friday 2016 videos only capture a portion of the chaos that ensued this past weekend as the shopping festival kicked off. At least three people were killed in separate incidents close to shopping malls on Friday.
In Reno, Nevada, a 33-year-old man was shot and killed after a dispute near a parking spot at a Walmart outlet last Friday. On Monday, police confirmed that the fight which resulted in the man’s death was not related to Black Friday shopping deals, the Reno-Gazette Journal reported. The dispute between the two men reportedly started earlier on the road. However, they confronted each other after parking at the entrance of the Walmart outlet. It is unclear if they had been heading to the retail outlet in the first place.
In another incident, a man was killed, and two other people were left injured after the man tried to intervene when he saw the suspect assaulting a woman in the parking lot of a Walmart outlet in Texas. The suspect reportedly opened fire on the victim after the latter confronted him.
In yet another shooting outside a shopping mall on Black Friday 2016, a man was killed, and his brother was left injured in New Jersey. The incident reportedly occurred outside a Macy’s department store in Atlantic County, CBS reported. The store was reportedly closed at the time that the shooting took place.
The fact that the Black Friday 2016 videos do not show as much fighting as previous years does not mean that there were fewer shoppers. According to the National Retail Federation (NRF), there were more shoppers during Black Friday 2016 than last year. However, a lot more people opted to make their purchases online compared to last year. Thanks to promotional bargains, shoppers spent less compared to 2015. A report by Abode stated that Black Friday 2016 sales amounted to over $3 billion.
What do you think of these Black Friday 2016 brawl videos?
[Featured Image by George Frey/Getty Images]
