A few violent incidents broke out across the United States on Black Friday as millions of shoppers rushed into stores that opened their doors several hours earlier than usual on the most anticipated U.S. shopping day of the year.
Early signs point to bigger crowds at U.S. malls and stores as retailers like Macy’s and Target opened their doors at midnight. Toys R Us and a few stores other stores that opened Thursday on the U.S. Thanksgiving holiday also were filled with shoppers.
The early morning crowds were mostly peaceful, but Los Angeles authorities say 20 people at a local Walmart store suffered minor injuries when a woman used pepper spray to gain a “competitive” shopping advantage shortly after the store opened on Thursday evening. In Fayetteville, N.C., police are looking for two suspects after gunfire erupted early Friday at Cross Creek Mall. And police say two women have been injured and a man charged after a fight broke out at an upstate New York Walmart.
Later in the morning, a Phoenix television station KSAZ reported that a grandfather in a Walmart in Buckeye, Ariz., was roughed up by police after the man allegedly put a game in his waistband so that he could lift his grandson out of the crowd. Witnesses told the station that police slammed the man to the ground – possibly thinking he was stealing the game.
Adding to that, some Occupy Wall Street protesters, which turned up for the Macy’s midnight opening, are expected to plan flash mobs and other events later in the day in places like Chicago, Washington, D.C. and Boise, Idaho to urge people to reconsider shopping at national chains on Black Friday.
The incidents come as a record number of shoppers are expected to head out to stores across the United States this weekend to take advantage of discounts of up to 70 per cent. For three days starting on Black Friday, 152 million people are expected shop, up about 10 per cent from last year, according to the National Retail Federation.
Across the border, retailers in Canada – which celebrates Thanksgiving about six weeks earlier in early October – are increasingly holding Black Friday sales themselves in an effort to keep their customers from visiting U.S. competitors.
However, Canadian consumers – who generally didn’t have a holiday on Thursday – were less numerous than in the United States where the end-of-year gift-buying season gets started on the last Friday in November.
The holiday has been nicknamed Black Friday because it’s reputed to be the day when retailers make enough sales to become profitable for the year, otherwise known as “in the black.”
