Bad enough the day after Thanksgiving the stores lure everyone in at 4 or 5 am to get unbelievable deals, now they're killing each other over them
Black Friday brings out the worst in peopleNEW YORK (Nov. 28) - A temporary Wal-Mart worker died after a throng of unruly shoppers broke down the doors and trampled him moments after the Long Island store opened early Friday for day-after-Thanksgiving bargain hunting, police said.
The 34-year-old employee was taken to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead at about 6 a.m., Nassau County police said. The exact cause of death had not been determined, and the man's name was not released.
A 28-year-old woman who was eight months pregnant was taken to a hospital for observation, where she and the baby were both reported to be OK, said Sgt. Anthony Repalone, a Nassau County police spokesman. He said four or five other people suffered minor injuries.
Police said the crowd of shoppers knocked the man to the ground at 5:03 a.m., three minutes after the store opened at the suburban location about 20 miles east of Manhattan. It wasn't immediately clear how many people pushed their way in. A metal portion of the door was crumpled like an accordion.
The industry's largest retail group said the incident was rare.
"We are not aware of any other circumstances where a retail employee has died working on the day after Thanksgiving," said Ellen Davis, a spokeswoman at National Retail Federation.
And then hours later,
gunfire in a Toys 'R' Us store2 dead after shots fired in Palm Desert toy store
PALM DESERT, Calif. -- Two people were shot to death in a crowded toy store Friday in a confrontation apparently involving rival groups, city officials said.
The violence erupted on Black Friday, the traditional post-Thanksgiving start of the holiday shopping surge, but accounts of what occurred inside the store were fragmentary or second hand and it was not clear whether it involved any shopping frenzy.
Palm Desert Councilman Jim Ferguson said police told him two men with handguns shot and killed each other and that there were 25 witnesses. Ferguson said he asked police whether the incident was a dispute over a toy or whether it was gang-related. He said police told him they were not going to release further details until the next of kin were contacted.
"I think the obvious question everyone has is who takes loaded weapons into a Toys 'R' Us?" he said. "I doubt it was the casual holiday shopper."
City spokeswoman Sheila Gilligan said police told her the shooting broke out between "two groups of individuals that have a dispute with each other."
The Palm Desert Police Department received calls of shots fired around 11:35 a.m., Riverside County sheriff's Sgt. Dennis Gutierrez said.
"We have two dead individuals inside the store," he said. "The events of why the shots were fired is still ongoing."
Toys 'R' Us officials did not immediately return calls for comment.
Palm Desert is about 120 miles east of Los Angeles. The Toys 'R' Us store is located at Fred Waring Road and Highway 111.
Ferguson said news of the shooting took him by surprise in the city in the desert resort region near Palm Springs.
"Most years we have zero homicides," the councilman said.
