Let the bargain-hunting brawls begin.
Black Friday kicked off on Thursday with stuffed shoppers waiting hours to rush big box stores where they promptly threw elbows and tussled over discount electronics around the country.
One video taken at a Houston, Texas Walmart store shows shoppers diving protectively on top of discount Samsung flatscreen TVs, clawing at each other over the discounted big screens before store security and armed police officers break up the mob.
At a Michigan City, Ind., Walmart, a couple donning Chicago Bears jerseys ripped a set of Sony speakers out of another shopper’s hands, hurling explicatives as the man whipped the box around, nearly bashing a scooter-bound man in the face with the package.
And some 150 miles south, in Indianapolis, a man was tossed from a city mall early Friday after being “too rowdy” — and promptly started a second brawl with another man in the parking lot, WXIN-TV reported.
When an off-duty cop stepped in to break it up, the man attacked the officer. And when the man’s girlfriend showed up, she too joined in on the beatdown before police were able to subdue and arrest both perps, the Fox affiliate reported.
In suburban Los Angeles, a brawl broke out at a Walmart during a heated argument over a Barbie doll shortly after the store opened its doors at 6 p.m. Thursday, KABC-TV reported.
A Kohl’s in southern California was the scene of two arrests around 1 a.m. after three women brawled, KTLA-TV reported. One combatant was hospitalized, police said.
Also opening Thanksgiving afternoon were Macy’s, Target and K-Mart, among others.
“My associates are happy to be here. We live for this entire year,” K-Mart store manager Carrie Ricketts told KABC.
In New York, the ASPCA is hosting “Cat Friday,” offering discounts for adoptions of cats and kittens.
Colorado and Washington state, meanwhile, are celebrating the first holiday season of legal marijuana with bigtime price slashes on pot. The so-called “Green Friday” celebration had local dispensaries dropping prices on the recreational weed and smoking devices.
“This is a brand new industry so people don’t know about Green Friday — not even a lot of the (marijuana) stores know about it,” one dispensary owner, Don Muridan, in Tacoma, Wash.,told KCPQ-TV.
“We know this is a really popular holiday for shoppers and why not if they can save money on other products why can’t they save money on cannabis as well?”
The shopping spree spilled over into the cyber world, where overeager surfers shut down the Best Buy website for several hours Wednesday night and Thursday morning, CNBC reported, and again for about an hour Friday, where the shopping template was replaced with the message, “WE’RE SORRY.” The company said traffic from mobile users forced a site shutdown so repairs could be made to improve performance.
The site was up and running Friday.
There was a more somber tone to the shopping extravaganza in Ferguson, Mo., which is still reeling from the decision by a grand jury Monday to not indict Officer Darren Wilson in the shooting of unarmed teen Michael Brown.
Protesters used Black Friday as a chance to get their message out, visiting St. Louis-area Targets and Walmarts with their hands up and chanting in a peaceful disruption of the shopping rush.
The day of shopping also brings a massive surge in gun sales around the country. A national database typically runs 58,000 background checks each day, a number that surged up to 145,000 during last year’s Black Friday.
The tradition of beginning Black Friday on Thanksgiving even gave some shoppers pause – as they continued to fill their shopping carts.
“It’s ruining the spirit of Thanksgiving,” said 20-year-old Cathyliz Lopez, who spent $700 at a New York Target store on Thursday. “But … the best deals were today.”
The typically American tradition has even traveled overseas, taking hold in the United Kingdom, where shoppers turned out at shopping outlets for discounts during the British version of the consumer holiday.
Police there reported at least two arrests and shoving during the mad rush for the first annual event. A woman hit by a falling TV set in Manchester was injured in the mayhem, police said.
“This created situations where we had to deal with crushing, disorder and disputes between customers,” Peter Fahy, police chief for greater Manchester, said of stores decision to open at midnight.
With News Wire Services
ON A MOBILE DEVICE? CLICK HERE TO WATCH THE VIDEO.
