The annual holiday scenes have appeared at stores with the commencement of Black Friday and the holiday shopping savagery.
This follows one shopper who turned to pepper spray to give her the “upper hand” in grabbing electronics.
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All that’s missing is some taser action…then we’ll have the trifecta…I’ve heard of a shooting, the pepper spray incident…the world is full of idiots…
TPMMuckraker
Day Of Spray: Cop, Shopper Turn To Pepper Spray To Brave Black Friday (VIDEO)
http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/11/day_of_spray_cops_shoppers_turn_to_pepper_spray_to.php
Excerpt:
Not all Wal-Mart trips ended in pepper spray, but several others did end in police action. In Rome, N.Y., a man was arrested after “several shoppers at the electronics department were pushed to the ground and several fights broke out,” according to NBC3 in Syracuse. And in Cave Creek, Ariz., the bomb squad took a suspected explosive device out of a Wal-Mart employee break room.
Other incidents occurred outside Wal-Mart stores early in the morning of Black Friday. In Myrtle Beach, S.C., a woman was shot in the foot during an armed robbery outside a Wal-Mart at around 1 AM. In San Leandro, Calif., a man was reportedly shot outside a Wal-Mart at about 2 a.m. “after suspects asked the victims for their items and were refused,” leading to a fight.
Does anyone else remember the Cabbage Patch Kids shopping hysteria of the early 1980s?
Pop culture history: Cabbage Patch Kids (1980s)
http://www.thedailyjournal.com/article/20090403/NEWS01/90406054/Pop-culture-history-Cabbage-Patch-Kids-1980s-
Frantic clamoring for the mall’s most popular toy of the season could arguably be called a time-honored tradition, and one which dates back to 1983 and that ultimate symbol of holiday hysteria: the Cabbage Patch Kid.
The brainchild of Xavier Roberts, whose signature could be found upon each doll’s cushy posterior, they came with their own adoption papers and names. No two dolls were said to be exactly alike.
Although really ugly, the nationwide demand for the then hard-to-get pudgy, yarn-haired dolls, was something of historical proportions.
Across the Delaware Valley, it was reported, desperate customers even bribed store janitors to get them one of the coveted dolls.
In one incident, at a Philadelphia-area store, an estimated crowd of 700 fought over a limited supply, biting and shoving each other, with one customer suffering a broken arm.
And in Vineland, a woman was sent to the hospital with a bloody nose and facial lacerations after a fight at Dry Goods in the Cumberland Mall.
The trouble here began after a flier advertising the dolls caused as many as 800 customers to line up at the store, today the site of Value City.
Things were orderly until the crowd neared the Cabbage Patch display area, which quickly became the scene of a wild free-for-all.
According to eyewitness reports in the Vineland Times Journal, one customer was trampled after grabbing some of the dolls, and the mob angrily chased a store employee seen carrying four Cabbage Patch Kids.
“It was the scariest thing I ever saw,” said a shaken customer. “Those people were like hungry dogs.”
Today, the craze that centered around the original dolls has become, like the Rubik’s Cube, designer sweaters, New Coke and Michael Jackson’s burning hair, a permanent fixture in the annals of 1980s pop culture.
What was he doing, trying on ladies underwear?
November 25, 2011
In Positive Economic Sign, Walmart Customers Killing Each Other to Buy Shit
Pepper Spraying, Homicide Bullish Indicators, Economists Say
MINNEAPOLIS (The Borowitz Report) – In what economists are hailing as a clear sign of economic recovery, Walmart customers across the USA jammed into stores on Black Friday, sometimes killing each other to buy useless shit.
“We have been looking for evidence that the economy is on the mend,” said Davis Logsdon, chairman of the economics department at the University of Minnesota. “When people resort to homicide to buy a Blu-ray player, that is very, very good news indeed.”
Mr. Logsdon said he was “impressed” by the lengths to which some Walmart customers were going to grab coveted sale items: “They’re using tactics we usually associate with the UC-Davis police.”
With many customers using pepper spray and other weapons to get a shopping advantage, however, Mr. Logsdon advised Americans not to enter a Walmart unarmed.
“If you want to get your hands on a doorbuster, you’d better have a firearm,” he said. “Fortunately, Walmart is offering several great doorbusters on firearms.”
Walmart and other retailers’ decision to commence their Black Friday sales a day early carries with it an added benefit for consumers, he noted: “Now, Americans will be able to declare bankruptcy one day earlier.”
All in all, Dr. Logsdon said that the increased violence and mayhem at retail outlets across the country was “a testament to the greatness of the American consumer.”
“Egyptians risk their lives for new government,” he said. “Americans bravely do the same for new flat screens.”
And OWS is criticized for incidences in their vicinity!!! Jeesh!!!
Elaine,
Oh my yes, I remember the Cabbage Patch Kid’s frenzy. My youngest just had to have one. I refused to take part in the craziness but my brother somehow found a warehouse full of them in Florida and got her one. Don’t ask, don’t tell had nothing to do with being gay when it came to procuring a Cabbage Patch Kid.
Grandpa get his face smashed and knocked unconscious by police:
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/11/25/police-body-slam-leaves-grandpa-bloody-unconscious-at-wal-mart/
And there was a tasing at Wal Mart in Ct.. the guy was already in cuffs, too. Little brown guy, of course. Why do they inflict the worst abuses on the weakest?
One of my wife’s friends, a Registered Nurse, was shopping at a J. C. Penney store. She picked out some socks and walked to another department to match the color with an outfit. A security guard, who was an off duty police lieutenant, body slammed her into a wall and arrested her for shoplifting.
I testified in her criminal trial, which ended up in an acquittal after every bit of ten minutes of jury deliberation. That pair of socks ended up costing J. C. Penny $19,000 in damages, plus all of her attorney’s fees. I heard, but not confirmed, that the police lieutenant ended up in hot water with the department, but was not fired.
OS,
How in Hell do you rationalize a shoplifting charge if she didn’t leave the store? Did she put the socks in her purse or something? Because absent that or some other action in furtherance of concealment, this is be one of the dumber cops I’ve ever heard of.
Gene, she had the socks draped over her wrist while she was taking the pantsuit off the rack. And you are right. The officer was too dumb to walk and chew gum at the same time. He tried to lie on the witness stand that she was trying to conceal the socks so she could shoplift them. Her lawyer had a field day with him and he was about as believable as Tommy Flanagan.
My guess is that Penney’s did not keep him on as a security guard.
That is one crazy story OS. With all this violence in Wal-Marts, it I one more reason to stay away!
Just add it to the giant pile of evidence of the complete lack of intelligence in the human species. We’re too stupid to survive much longer.
So, if I was actually stupid enough to attend one of the mindless arguments for a communist economic system and ended up with capsaicin burns on my face, irritated eyes and stinging throat could I collect damages from sprawl-mart? Could I also say that the attack prevented me from picking up the cheap piece of Chinese crap I was going to get at a 3% savings and add that loss to the damages?
If private gambling were legal here I’d have a pool started for Black Friday Opening Time 2012. I guess 8 PM Thursday but some people thing it more likely to be 6.
Another Black Friday Scene from Walmart:
My daughter bought a waffle maker a couple of weeks ago. It was $9.95 or so at the department store. I am gobsmacked that people will camp out for hours in the cold, then risk injury or death to save eight dollars on a cheap counter-top appliance made in China.
Otteray,
Did you see the lady with the plumber pants in the video that I posted? It looks like she made off with at least four waffle makers. If I had her address, I’d send her a carton of genuine imitation Vermont maple syrup.
Maybe she had dreams of opening a Waffle House franchise.
Elaine,
I just can not get excited over a waffle maker, at any cost!
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-201_162-57331509/black-friday-pepper-spray-suspect-surrenders/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/26/obama-books-shopping-kramerbooks-small-business-saturday_n_1114120.html
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/11/wis-dems-shopping-for-recall-walker-signatures-on-black-friday.php?ref=fpnewsfeed
From the MSNBC news page:
“Family and friends were stunned by the loss of a West Virginia man who died while shopping on Black Friday as fellow bargain hunters reportedly walked around — and even over — the man’s body.”
Source: http://usnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/11/26/9035999-report-shoppers-unfazed-as-man-dies-at-target
Headline: “Black Friday Worker Rescued From Canal After Losing Control Of Car Due To Exhaustion”
Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/26/black-friday-worker-rescued_n_1114350.html
She will probably have a hard time filing a claim under Worker’s Compensation. This holiday season looks like full employment time for attorneys.