Pepper Spray on Black Friday as Shopping Mayhem Hits America
This Black Friday was marred with reports of violence from coast to coast at some of the nation’s largest retailers on the busiest shopping day of the year.
Shoppers at a Walmart in San Leandro, Calif., waited for hours in line to be some of the first to receive the best deals. Unfortunately some did not have the patience to wait in line and instead waited for some unsuspecting holiday shoppers to come out.
A family was approached by a multiple suspects in the parking lot as they left the store. The armed assailants demanded the victims to give them their merchandise. When they refused a man was shot.
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According to reports from ABC 7 news affiliate KGO-TV Police received a report of a fight in front of the Walmart at 15555 Hesperian Blvd. around 1:50 a.m.
There were officers patrolling the premises and when they arrived at the scene they found one man with a gunshot wound and the other family members struggling to detain one of the suspected assailants.
The victim was taken to a local hospital in critical, but stable condition, police said. The other suspects fled.
In a separate incident, also occurring at a Walmart in California, a woman reportedly pepper sprayed a crowd of fellow shoppers. A witness told Los Angeles' NBC4 that the incident started as people waited in line for the new Xbox 360. The witness claims that the woman, who also had two children with her, became angry with people as they were pushing in line. She then pulled out her pepper spray and used it on the crowd.
NBC4 News reported police said no more than 15 people were hurt and that most of the injuries were caused by the effects of the pepper spray.
Shawn Lenske, a Los Angeles fire department spokesman, said some the injuries were also due to "rapid crowd movement" as shoppers ran away from the area.
Police Lt. Abel Parga said that the woman who used pepper spray left quickly after the incident. She then later turned herself in. The woman’s identity has yet to be released.
In Sacramento, a man was stabbed outside a mall Friday in an apparent gang-related incident as shoppers were hitting the stores. The victim was taken to a hospital with non-life-threatening injuries, police said.
The stabbing stemmed from a fight between two groups around 3 a.m. in front of a Macy's department store at the Arden Fair Mall. No arrests have been made. Police were hoping surveillance video will help identify the suspects.
In another incident police in Phoenix came under fire when a video was posted online showing a 54-year-old grandfather on the floor of a Walmart store with a bloody face, police said he was subdued Thursday night trying to shoplift during a chaotic rush for discounted video games.
