Ahhh, Black Friday. The one day a year where it’s socially acceptable to get in a fight over a flat screen TV that has been very, very deeply discounted.
OK, we’re kidding about that part. It’s never OK to get in a fight over a flat screen TV — no matter how deep the discount might be!! Nobody told these people (below) about that (should-be-obvious) rule, though. So, to help you celebrate Black Friday 2023, we’ll be taking a long look at a few instances of really, really (really, really) bad Black Friday behavior from the recent past!
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Without further ado, scroll down to get the sordid skinny on the five CRAZIEST Black Friday fights ever caught on camera!!
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Tennessee, USA (2019)
Let’s start with a wild one, shall we? This incident took place at a Walmart in eastern Tennessee on Black Friday back in 2019. Multiple families got involved over a disagreement about some merchandise. There are some 40″ flat screen TVs in the foreground of the video clip here, so we can only assume that things turned hectic at the thought of cheap electronics!!
In just this short clip alone, people can be seen pushing, shoving, yelling, jostling, and even hitting the deck! Things then take a turn when a store employee tries to square up with a customer during the melee. The police eventually show up to break up the fight, with two officers rushing in to take the two main combatants into custody. At the very end of it all, one woman can very clearly be heard screaming “she hit me first” in a thick southern drawl. Bless her heart!
Washington, USA (2021)
Black Friday craziness is often seen as wacky. It’s not necessarily fun (unless you’re viewing it and not part of it…), but it certainly isn’t (usually) totally scary, either. But back on Black Friday in 2021 at a mall in Tacoma, Washington, that calculus decidedly changed. The Tacoma Mall was packed with post-Thanksgiving shoppers who were keen on getting a good deal on various items in the stores. But even though it was extremely crowded, it wasn’t violent… for a while.
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Late in the evening, though, a fight broke out at the food court. Two people got into a verbal altercation, and it quickly escalated into one of them pulling out a gun and firing shots. The intended target was hit and seriously injured, but survived, per news reports. The fallout from the shooting carried throughout the mall, though. People sprinted out of stores and trampled one another to get to the exits and avoid what they thought at the time might be a mass shooting. Terrifying!!
London, UK (2014)
Let’s go back to 2014 for this Black Friday brouhaha. Shoppers went berserk at an Asda store trying to score the biggest late-night-slash-early-morning deals on all kinds of goods. The front lines at the store opening are normal at first. Busy, sure, but reasonably well-mannered and all. But as the surge rushes forward, one person falls, and then the next, and then the next. The frenzy takes a turn and people start mauling each other, tripping each other, grabbing each other, and more! Just in order to get to the front to have access to the best and cheapest stuff!!
Obviously, people getting trampled and stepped on is no joke. But here’s the other crazy part of this particular Black Friday tale: it went down in London! That’s right… the United Kingdom! Isn’t Black Friday an American thing, since, ya know, it comes up hours after American Thanksgiving?? Looks like we’ve exported our wild shopping culture to the Brits. And we’ve sent ’em our in-store aggression, too!
Tennessee, USA (2018)
The year was 2018, the scene was a Victoria’s Secret Black Friday sale at a mall in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and the controversy was over the trampling of a poor VS employee who was just trying to keep order with customers who were desperate to score on cheap s**t. As you can see in the video (above), customers begin to jostle with each other for everything leopard print-related when the tussling turns violent.
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Whatever salary the poor employee in the video was making for her work to administer this particular late-night sale wasn’t enough. Seriously, can you see the look of sheer terror on her face?? Brutal! Is that really worth saving a couple bucks on some Christmas gifts or whatever?! Take it easy, Chattanooga…
Alabama, USA (2017)
If you want to get Black Friday canceled, just ask shoppers at the Riverchase Galleria in Hoover, Alabama how that went down way back in 2017. On Black Friday that year, the mall planned to be open for shoppers to purchase goods from 6:00 p.m. local time on Thanksgiving night right up until midnight. Then, the mall was going to close for a few hours and open back up at 6:00 a.m. on the morning of Black Friday for a full day of deals. There was just one problem: a brawl so vicious late on Thanksgiving night that it literally SHUT DOWN THE MALL!
Hoover Police Department officers rushed to the scene after multiple people started fighting late on Thanksgiving night. The brawl spread so quickly, and so violently, that police leaders and mall officials collectively decided to close down the entire galleria just after 11:00 p.m. They ushered shoppers out to the parking lot and told them to go home early! As for the combatants, AL.com reported at the time that multiple people were injured in the brawl, and several more were arrested for their antics. That would really be something, spending Thanksgiving night in jail…
So there you have it. Hopefully you’re not braving the stores on this Black Friday, y’all, and instead hanging out at home with family and friends!! Still, what do U make of all this shocking holiday violence?? Sound OFF with your reactions to these crazy and unfortunate viral moments down in the comments (below)!
[Image via CNN Money/YouTube]