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Black Friday pepper-spray attack at Walmart injures 20 as violence mars Thanksgiving sales

Twenty people, including children, received minor injuries after a woman reportedly pepper-sprayed other shoppers at a Los Angeles-area Walmart store on Thursday as late-night Black Friday sales began in the United States and Canada

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Second pepper spraying at North Carolina Walmart Woman shot in foot at South Carolina shopping centre Arrests after shooting at California Walmart

Twenty people, including children, were injured after a woman reportedly pepper sprayed other shoppers at a Los Angeles-area Walmart store on Thursday as late-night Black Friday sales turned violent in the United States.

Calling it an act of “competitive shopping,” a fire captain told the Los Angeles Times the woman had intentionally taken the pepper spray with her to the department store in Porter Ranch to get the edge on her fellow shoppers.

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She used the pepper spray in several areas of the store, Los Angeles Fire Capt. James Carson said, in an attempt to snap up heavily discounted Xbox gaming consoles, Wii video games, Bratz dolls and tricycles.

The L.A.-area Walmart

“People started screaming, pulling and pushing each other, and then the whole area filled up with pepper spray,” Alejandra Seminario told the Times.

“I did not want to get involved. I was too scared. I just stayed in the toy aisle.”

She said the pepper spray hung in the air, causing her to cough and her face to itch.

Other shoppers “had been sprayed in the face, it looked like, and they had swelling of the face, really extreme swelling of face, redness, coughing,” Seminario added.

At least seven of the shoppers were receiving medical care; areas of the store were evacuated after the incident. Victims reported irritation of the skin, eye and throat.

The woman behind the pepper spraying is still being sought by authorities.

“This was customer-versus-customer ‘shopping rage,'” LAPD Lieutenant Abel Parga told the Los Angeles Times.

The store’s specials that day were said to include Bratz dolls for US$5 and Wii games for US$10.

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NYC Hollister store robbed by ‘mob’

It seems a crowd of Black Friday shoppers just couldn’t wait for a New York Hollister — one of a chain known for its dimly lit stores and frat boy fashions — to open. From the Observer:

Around 12:30 this morning, Hollister was burglarized by a crowd of Black Friday shoppers that had grown impatient while waiting in line outside the surf shop-inspired superstore, according to a clique of teenage eyewitnesses assembled outside the American Eagle Outfitters across the street.

Man in critical condition after shooting at SF Walmart

As well, a shopper was shot early Friday during a robbery outside a San Francisco-area Walmart, according to NBC News. He is in critical but stable condition at a local hospital.

The victim was carrying purchases to his car with his family when several people approached them and demanded they hand over the goods.

A fight broke out, and one suspect pulled out a gun and shot one of the victims, NBC News reported Friday.

Police have a suspect, an adult male in his 20s, in custody, the news agency reported.

Woman shot in foot in South Carolina shopping centre parking lot

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The 55-year-old had been Black Friday shopping before she was shot. A witness told authorities that she saw a man asking for the woman’s purse. From Myrtle Beach Online:

The woman went into the vehicle and grabbed a gun out of the center console and pointed it toward a second suspect….The woman fired 2 or 3 warning shots in the air and the suspects ran from the scene, one toward the Walmart parking lot and the other toward a wooded area on Grissom Parkway. One of the suspects was able to get away with the victim’s purse.

The shooting victim is being treated in a local hospital.

Shooting at California Walmart

One man was arrested after another man was shot in the parking lot of a San Leandro, California Walmart. The shooting, which took place around 1:45 a.m. local time, sent one man to the hospital. “It was a robbery gone bad,” police Sergeant Mike Sobek said, according to CNN. “The victim’s family fought with the robbers. They were able to detain one suspect. We are not sure if that suspect is the shooter, but we do have one person in custody right now.”

Another pepper spraying at North Carolina Walmart

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Off-duty police officers working as security guards at a Kinston, North Carolina Walmart deployed pepper spray after a “disturbance” between shoppers, WNCT reports. One person has been arrested.

Black Friday injuries of the past

In 2008, a 34-year-old employee at a Walmart in Valley Stream, New York, was trampled to death by a crowd of about 2,000 shoppers, some of whom refused to stop their stampede after he was knocked down.

Last year, on Black Friday, a woman was arrested at a toy store in Wisconsin after threatening to shoot shoppers who reportedly had objected to her cutting in line.

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