For your viewing pleasure, here’s a video of just some of the dozens of reports of violence that broke out in malls across America today. Black Friday has now been renamed “Whack Friday.”
Shocking scenes erupted in Louisville, Kentucky, the home of Muhammad Ali, after two men began punching each other as hundreds of shoppers looked on.
As the fight erupted, a woman was knocked to the ground as the men are seen grappling with each other in an effort to subdue one another.
Police were forced to intervene to break up the pair after the men had gone toe-to-toe with their bags lying nearby.
In the Florence Mall, in Florence, Kentucky, a huge brawl broke out off involving more than dozen youths.
A police officer broke up the fight, as shown in the footage, which lasts at least 30 seconds. It’s unclear what sparked the fight.
Elsewhere across the country numerous clips of violence were posted on social media show fights breaking out with one showing a group of young teenagers punching each other outside a shop.
One woman was filmed ripping a vegetable steamer from the arms of a tiny child in Saginaw, Michigan.
Today New York shopper Claire Thomas, who was over from Birmingham with three friends, said she’d never witnessed anything like it.
“You can feel the tension building before the doors open,” she told the Mirror. “Then when they are unlocked it is pandemonium.
“We saw three ladies sent flying by other shoppers. It is really worth it?”
I blame Trump.
Actually, we should blame the retailers. They put these items on sale at huge discounts, deliberately limiting the number of the product on the shelves. The point, of course, is not to sell a 54 inch HDTV for $99, it’s to bring people into the store where they can buy something else at or near MSRP.
Please don’t use these shopper scrums to bemoan the end of civilization or the downfall of America. That’s nonsense. The hype over Black Friday gets worse every year and people get caught up in it.
The only lesson to be taken away from today is that the combination of mob psychology and marketing wizardry can have some unfortunate results.
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