Things truly were black on the Friday after Thanksgiving, as consumers shoved, punched and sprayed their way in Wal-Marts across America to get the best bargains.

 

A Wal-Mart in the Porter Ranch neighborhood of Los Angeles received the most Black Friday notoriety after a customer used pepper spray on 20 people so she could grab an Xbox game console. The woman later turned herself in to police.

 

In the Wal-Mart in Buckeye, Arizona, Jerald Newman, shopping with his grandson and other relatives, put a video game under his shirt, allegedly to protect it from other shoppers who were trying to grab the game. A police officer, assuming Newman was shoplifting, seized him and slammed his face into the ground, knocking him unconscious for ten minutes.

 

A panicked off-duty officer working as a security guard also used pepper spray on unruly shoppers at a Wal-Mart in Kinston, North Carolina, after a man waiting in line to buy a cell phone fell against a display and a fight broke out.

 

At Wal-Marts in Michigan and Ohio, a sale on bath towels brought out the worst in people. One woman “came out swinging” after getting shoved from behind, according to Michigan police.

 

In Arkansas, an overweight woman was captured on video losing her pants as she grappled to buy $2 waffle irons.

-Noel Brinkerhoff, David Wallechinsky

 

Violence, Pepper Spray Mar Black Friday Shopping (by Barbara Goldberg, Reuters)

Grandfather Injured, Arrested in Walmart Brawl (CNN)

Police Pepper Spray Kinston Walmart Crowds, Former Officer Arrested (by Alex Freedman, WNCT-TV, Greenville)

Wal-Mart Shoppers ‘Riot’ Over Two-Dollar Waffle Irons (by Dave Edwards, Raw Story)