This is what happens when you open a store on Thanksgiving night. People have been inside all day eating and drinking and have a ton of pent up energy. So, throw them all into a competitive situation after all that and something is bound to happen. Last night, just 20 minutes after a Wal-Mart opened here in Los Angeles, a woman took out her pepper spray and opened fire on her fellow patrons. Why? An Xbox 360. Yeah, that is worth injuring a bunch of people. After she opened fire with the spray, people scrambled to get out of the way which caused people to get trampled. I am shocked no one has died. This is not the first time Wal-Mart has had injuries and until they start valuing life more than sales it will not be the last time. In total about 20 people were injured.
The woman is still on the loose.
Well, my dang rugrat nieces gave me PINK EYE, as I realized upon waking this morning, so I might as well've been pepper-sprayed, in the right eye, anyway.
ReplyDeleteTherefore I have two words for my Black Friday:
Arrrggghhhh.
and
Grrrrrr.
What is wrong with people? That is so stupid! It's just STUFF.
ReplyDeleteI agree it's just stuff-people are crazy. However it should be said that Walmart in LA is in Crenshaw (very ghetto-not a good area) and also in East LA (really not a good area) and in Panorama City (way north, again not a good area).
ReplyDeleteI live in LA, right now I'm in SD and I can get to four different Walmart's in 15 minutes or less.
So I can understand a very large crowd at one of the few Walmart's in LA.
yes...and the people that work at these stores; many have been pissed about missing part of their holiday this week. lots of drinking and partying. THEN; send them to work. should be an interesting day in the world of retail.
ReplyDeletePeople are plain crazy...I do not shop on BLACK FRIDAY ever, It's the worst day to shop and the prices are way better in December.
ReplyDeleteWe don't have black Friday in Canada, and I am totally okay with it. I can't believe somebody would get so wound up over a video game system.
ReplyDelete@girltrav
ReplyDeleteThere are more than three Walmarts in Los Angeles. From the map on their site, there are at least seven close to downtown Los Angeles. I live in eastern Los Angeles County and there are two near me.
Unbelievable.
ReplyDelete@Prairie Prima Donna, our equivalent is Boxing Day and it's the same nonsense (without the trampling, unless there's a hockey loss involved).
ReplyDeleteBoxing Day (December 26) brings out the worst people who could've bought the same stuff for the same price on December 24 and enjoyed their holidays.
And I don't blame Walmart, I blame the people. And the media. They've pushed Black Friday into another stratosphere and encourage this kind of behaviour.
This is so retarded. Two years ago when Walmart decided to be open 24 hours due to the employee trampling death the year before, they made employees and especially mgt, work thanksgiving and stay on for Black Friday, which means many people had to work 16 to 20 hour shifts with little break. A manager at a new jersey store, worked all day Thanksgiving and had a couple of hours off before he had to be back at 1am and so wanted to go home to see his family and have a late dinner even though he was exhausted. Long story short, best anyone can tell, he fell asleep at the wheel, and went headon into another car killing him, and a preacher and his wife in the other car. For some reason, that did not make more than the local paper. Black Friday needs to stop.
ReplyDeleteI was at our Walmart's Black Friday as a vendor/employee (I was one of the people who handed out free 5-hour energy shots and Emergen-C samples. I hate this job, but the writing jobs are still slim and it's better to be employed than not.)
ReplyDeleteEven though the people were seemingly foaming at the mouth over silly stuff (the lines for the TVs, computer gear and gaming systems were crazy-long), the store did an excellent job to keep the customers orderly, and the customers were generally patient and well-behaved.
Belligerent shoppers are the exception, and not the rule.
Still, it would be a lot nicer if stores stayed closed until Friday morning, instead of encroaching more and more on the holiday. I just don't see them doing that unless they stop making a profit, and something pretty catastrophic would have to happen before these stores stop making profits.
Not sure what map you are looking at but there are not 6 Walmart's in Los Angeles let alone near downtown.
ReplyDeleteThere is one in Torrance, Pico Rivera, Rosemead, Paramount, and Norwalk. These are cities that are at least 17 miles outside of the City of "Los Angeles".
Besides the incident happened in Porter Ranch, 21 miles outside of "Los Angeles".
Whatever, I just got back from Walmart in SD with no problems and it was not busy. People are just a little crazy when it comes to Black Friday.
The media only shows the crazy. Wouldn't be much of a story if they showed a non-existent line-up and people browsing.
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ReplyDeleteMy understand was for most stores, people can buy this shit online anyway at the same price?? Good LAWD. And if the woman's still on the loose, does that mean she didn't get her XBox?
ReplyDeleteWhat state is it that has banned stores from opening on Thanksgiving day? More states should pass that law. I am a participant in Boycott Black Friday and Buy Nothing Day. The crass consumerism is one thing, but for these companies to make the decision to take people away from their families on one of the few sacred days we have left in this country irks me. Cracks me up that WalMart tries to spout their "values" out of one side of their mouth when their actual business practices clearly contradict that.
ReplyDeleteI wouldn't go even if we did have BF here...I get annoyed just going to Safeway around 6 pm when it's really busy, I would probably get in a fistfight at Wally world on Black Friday...*L* I have made the mistake of checking out Boxing day sales a few times. NOT WORTH IT.
ReplyDeleteI don't understand why people run out on Black Friday. It's insane.
ReplyDeleteI especially don't understand WalMart. I refuse to shop. It is a horrible store that treats its employees terribly. The Walton family is incredibly greedy and operate in a manner that kills small businesses. Moreover, neither the company nor the family is known for its philanthropy.
Even if you don't boycott Black Friday, avoid the plague that is WalMart.
Sorry if that was political, but I really loathe WalMart.
ReplyDeleteRight there with you, Beth.
ReplyDeleteThe "Black Friday" hype symbolizes a whole lot of what I think is wrong with my beloved country. And people who participate in it are crazy.
I'm sitting here waiting for my son and his girlfriend to get home after working at Best Buy from 10p last night until 2pm today. While it is not the longest shift, if you are not used to those kind of hours, it is easy to see how bad accidents can happen...I have been on pins and needles worried about just the sort of thing Sharknerd posted. :(
ReplyDeleteIf you read the article this story is based on, http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2011/11/at-wal-mart-pepper-spray-attack-triggered-chaos-screaming.html
ReplyDeleteyou could argue that someone was in a crowded mob and needed to defend themselves.
I don't condone it, but the person wasn't arrested which means something.
Walmart literally blew a whistle to let people know the sale was on. That encourages scrambling and bad behavior, imho.
Walmart doesn't give a shit if people get hurt. It's all free publicity for them.
ReplyDeletebut what I want to know is, did she get the Xbox?
Walmart is evil, yes but the consumers share some blame too. I have the news on all day at work and it's all they're talking about (absolutely nothing is going on and they can use this as their "economy" story) and they're showing footage of the lines. There is no shortage of people smiling for the camera, bragging about how early they got there, showing off what they bought. They chose to be there.
ReplyDeleteOf all the footage I've seen, I only saw one woman hide her face from the camera.
I heard on the news she faces felony battery charges! What an idiot. She got away so no one knows if she got her Xbox or not, but they are checking register receipts.
ReplyDeleteAll the Black Friday coverage I saw on the news this morning was nuts. I think opening Thanksgiving night is insane & I agree they should wait til Friday morning.
Like I said in the Thanksgiving post, I never went Black Friday shopping after my sister caught people trying to steal those doorbuster type deals out of her cart.
There is a big movement to boycott Black Friday, and I hope it gets more traction. Tomorrow is small business Saturday, and Monday is for online retailers.
ReplyDeleteDamn. This is why I shop online. The prices are roughly the same and I don't have to worry about getting my fat rump trampled.
ReplyDeleteBlack Friday is a pox on our society.
I wonder how long until someone brings an actual gun inside and takes people out for some stupid toy. Near us a few years ago 2 ladies fought over a cheap computer and one lady hit the other in the head with a kitchen appliance (I think it was a toaster). I still don't understand how if they can offer a Wii for $99.00 on BF, they can't do it randomly throughout the year.
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ReplyDeletethese people are complete degenerates and should be ejected into outer space and off of our planet.
ReplyDeletelet them kill themselves. and make a reality show out of it.
This Black Friday nonsense makes me sick. They were talking on the news about how people left their Thanksgiving dinners early just to get to the stores. Because, of course, Stuff is more important than family.
ReplyDeleteI hate Black Friday with a passion. Shit like this is why. All that for a freaking X Box?
ReplyDeleteThis is why I love online shopping. The commenter above is right - WalMart has most of the same crap online. The deals were terrible. All the more reason to sleep in!
My husband went out to JCPenney at 4 AM to get a Mickey Mouse snowglobe for my mom. He said the place was packed with loud, rude, fat women, traveling in packs, buying $500 of clothes.
ReplyDeleteNothing out of the ordinary for Black Friday at a New Jersey mall. LOLOL.
I don't work at Walmart, but I do work in retail. We opened at 12am, people started arriving 4 hours before we opened, I got there at 11pm and the parking lot was full, I was there until 10am.
ReplyDeleteWe had a few complaints because when we opened we only unlocked one set of doors so people had to file through nice and orderly. No one got hurt though! We had someone say we needed to build more registers (we had 15 open). And one lady was angry because she got there at 9am and we had sold out of whatever she wanted. She said she was going to write corporate a letter saying we shouldn't open until then, we said thank you.
I know a lady at one of our Walmarts was robbed in the parking lot. She was going in to pay off her lay away and they stole $800 from her. Couple years ago someone was shot in the parking lot when people tried to steal the stuff they bought.
Sad thing is, that Porter Ranch Walmart is in one of the nicer areas of the San Fernando Valley. High Six-Figure homes in the area and really good schools. Not at all urban or ghetto.
ReplyDeleteYou would THINK this wouldn't happen in the area, but no, money really truly doesn't buy class.