Maryland Mall Evacuated After Nike Shoe Melee
A large fight involving dozens of shoppers eager to get the newest pair of Nike shoes broke out outside of a Foot Locker in a Maryland on Saturday.
Valley Mall in Hagerstown is where the melee ensued. The shoe at the center of this incident was the new Nike Foam tennis shoe.
"Just a fight going on down there at Foot Locker. Arguments; someone said that there was knives pulled," said mall employee Cassandra Jenkins.
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Around 15 officers from the local sheriff's office, Maryland State Police and Hagerstown Police Department responded to a disturbance call at the Valley Mall just after 8:00 a.m.
Reports state that about 100 individuals were involved in the disturbance while waiting in front of the Foot Locker store for the release the new sneaker, according to a sheriff's office news release.
The responding officers moved all customers outside. And then officers escorted small groups of shoppers into the store one after the other.
"What we did is we brought in five customers at a time, let them get their shoes and just kept rotating like that," said Sheriff Doug Mullendore.
According to reports, the Nike Foam sneakers can sell for more than $200 at various retailers. There have been incidents that the popular shoe bringing double that price when they are sold on the internet.
"They only release them once a year and when they're on sale like that, some people buy them for themselves. Others buy 'em to resell and...they can double or triple their money," Mullendore said.
"Yeah, I could believe that something would happen like that. I mean, it's just terrible," said mall employee Porsche Russ.
Mullendore said no one was arrested because officers couldn't identify the instigators.
"It was impossible to tell who the aggressors were," he said. "There was just a lot of hollering and that type of thing when we got there."
