Culture

Your Black Friday Mayhem Round-Up

Black Friday is upon us, which means trouble's afoot across the nation. Overzealous shoppers will do anything for a deal, including lying, fighting, and dragging a police officer with a car. 

By Connor Simpson
This article is from the archive of our partner .

Black Friday is upon us, which means trouble's afoot across the nation. Overzealous shoppers will do anything for a deal, including lying, fighting, and dragging a police officer with a car.

We know Black Friday deals are a sham. We feel terrible for the souls forced to work retail on the holidays, cutting short their own Thanksgiving dinners so the masses may shop at earlier hours every year in pursuit of that one budget-busting deal. And yet, every year, we're greeted with more violence and chaos the morning after we come together as family. Aren't the holidays wonderful?

Two separate Walmart fight videos have emerged. The first, per Business Insider, takes place inside a Walmart in Elkin, North Carolina. A mob of people jostle for flat-screen TVs, when all of a sudden tensions rise and a small fight breaks out. One man puts down his TV to pick up and slam another man, who might have been attacking someone else. A woman screams "oh my God!" as this goes on. Security does little to nothing to stop the violence.

The uploader says he was thrown out for recording the video while the violent offenders he documented weren't approached by security. Pick your battles, indeed.

The other Walmart video's origin is unknown, but it's had some wide pick-up Friday morning. Again, the fight seemingly broke out over the same flat-screen TV deal. This time Walmart security worked to calm the throbbing mass around them, but did not succeed. Two girls start fighting over a television before police can break them up. One girl gets roughed up by security.

But the mayhem was hardly limited to Walmarts nationwide. In Chicago, a shoplifting scheme ended when a police officer was dragged by the getaway car the driver was shot in his shoulder.

Here's what happened, as reported by the Chicago Tribune: cops chased two people sprinting from a Kohl's with arm loads of stolen merchandise to a Pontiac Sunfire waiting nearby. In the ensuing scuffle one officer was somehow caught in the car and dragged as the criminals drove away. Another officer shot the driver in the shoulder, foiling their plan. Three people were arrested and no one was seriously injured. Everyone else went about their day:

Despite the shooting, shoppers were still browsing the aisles of the store where police had marked off a crime scene with orange cones out front. An unmarked police car was parked inside that boundary, behind a black Pontiac sedan with bullet holes visible in its rear driver’s-side window. Shoppers used their cell phones to snap pictures of the scene.

But back to Walmart for now! In Rialto, California, two people were taken into custody following a three-person brawl outside a Walmart over alleged line-cutting. People fighting on the grass behind this police officer in the video:

The photo above shows an absurdly huge crowd gathered at the Macy's in New York's Herald Square, the flagship store, early Friday morning. Black Friday truly is here to stay. If you see any other mayhem that should be included, feel free to put it in the comments or, better yet, email us. 

If you need a palette cleanser, here, enjoy:

The holidays aren't all bad.

This article is from the archive of our partner The Wire.