Ready to rumble? Black Friday brings cheer, black eyes across U.S.
Black Friday has begun and with the rock-bottom sales and busy shopping malls it has also, as always, brought out an ugly side of human nature — fighting.
Already on Thursday, videos of swelling crowds, people jostling each other and holding televisions over their heads were emerging on YouTube, prompting wagging fingers among online commenters who were probably browsing Black Friday sales at home.
Walmart stores, especially, have seen trouble, with reports of a man in Virginia stabbing another and three people brawling over cutting the line in Rialto, Calif. Police pepper sprayed another man in New Jersey, also at a Walmart, because of an argument over yet another television, according to the Telegraph.
The Twitter hashtag #walmartfights is documenting all of the dispiriting moments that make this annual day in shopping history the bizarre ritual it is.
"Nothing captures the human experience quite like dropkicking a stranger for the final iPad Air." http://t.co/0GTkQ8T4uI #WalmartFights
— laura pond (@LPond22) November 29, 2013
I anyone ever asks me why I don't go out on #BlackFriday, I'm going to point them to the hashtag #WalmartFights. pic.twitter.com/TMyrECjwki — Kate Sweeten (@kate_kansascity) November 29, 2013
Lol at the people at Wal-Mart that got in a fight over a toaster
— Andres Perez (@andreslobo96) November 29, 2013
But neither Walmart, nor the U.S. were alone; Yahoo! U.K. reported there was chaos at Asda supermarkets across Britain, with at least one woman landing in hospital after she was slugged in the face.
In addition, an attempt to shoplift at a Kohl's store near Chicago led to a police officer being dragged by a vehicle, and one man being shot in the shoulder by another officer, according to the Associated Press.
The most wonderful time of the year.