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Woman Attacks Fellow Black Friday Shoppers With Pepper Spray At Wal Mart

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» 103 comments

A crowd of early Black Friday birds at a Los Angeles-area Wal Mart got more than they bargained for as they tried to gobble up great deals Thursday night: chemical warfare. According to reports, up to 20 people were injured when an unidentified woman deployed pepper spray on her fellow shoppers, allegedly in order to gain an advantage in securing deals on discounted electronic items. Reports on injuries vary, but according to the Associated Press, 20 people received minor injuries, some due to “rapid crowd movement.”

From the AP:

A woman shot pepper spray to keep shoppers from merchandise she wanted during a Black Friday sale, and 20 people suffered minor injuries, authorities said.

The incident occurred shortly after 10:20 p.m. Thursday in a crowded Los Angeles-area Walmart as shoppers hungry for deals were let inside the store.

Police said the suspect shot the pepper spray when the coverings over the items she wanted were removed.

“Somehow she was trying to use it to gain an upper hand,” police Lt. Abel Parga told The Associated Press early Friday.

He said she was apparently after some electronics and used the pepper spray to keep other shoppers at bay.

The woman is still at large.

Although this is definitely not the best way to kick off the holiday season, such Black Friday mayhem has become almost an annual rite, and with far deadlier consequences. For example, in 2008, 34 year-old Wal Mart employee Jdimytai Damour was trampled to death at a Long Island Wal Mart by an over-eager Black Friday crowd. Following that incident, Wal Mart reached a settlement with prosecutors to avoid criminal prosecutions, and spent millions fighting a $7000 OSHA fine to avoid setting a precedent that might allow the agency to require retailers to take responsibility for crowd safety.

This pepper spray incident, coming as it does on the heels of the UC Davis police attack on Occupy protesters, is sure to provoke discussion of this kind of consumerist sociopathy as it relates to the 99%. It’s tempting to blame retailers, abetted by a mainstream media that fills its Thanksgiving business reports with Black Friday hype, for creating the conditions for such chaos, but consumers are way past the “fool me twice” stage. It’s about time we stopped dancing to the Black Friday tune.

Here’s a video report on the incident from Toledo NBC affiliate WNWO, in which anchor China Sellers also discusses her own trip to a local Wal Mart, and one of her co-hosts urges viewers to “go to Target, where it’s safe!”


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  • wawoo

    I thought Megyn Kelly was in New York. Nice of the lady to be so very thoughtful of her fellow shoppers as to provide them nourishment.

  • Anonymous

    “Woman Attacks Fellow Black Friday Shoppers With Pepper Spray At Wal Mart”

    When will this Black Friday on Black Friday crime stop?

  • Anonymous

    Not that the two incidents are related at all, or tied together in any way, shape or form – but since you included it in your article, the following is an exerpt from newsbusters:

    “As Occupy-loving media continue to express outrage over protesters getting pepper-sprayed by campus police officers at the University of California at Davis last week, a surprising admission by one of the attendees was uncovered in an interview Democracy Now!’s Amy Goodman did Monday.
    One of the pepper-sprayed students told Goodman, “We had encircled them [campus police], and they were trying to leave, and they were trying to clear a path. And so, we sat down, linked arms, and said that if they wanted to clear the path, they would have to go through us” (video follows with transcript and commentary):
    Read more: http://newsbusters.org/#ixzz1ej1kNZ6i

    Just wanting to put that fact on the table.

  • Anonymous

    Saturday, Gloves.

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_4FZJDIZSMSB2SZAEPNOKGD745Y G

    REDACTION/REVISION ORDERMinistry of Truth  orders the following revisions: ”Walmart shoppers clashed Friday, and pepper spray was used to disperse crowds”.  Nobody was injured or hurt; they were “dispersed”. Nobody was assaulted; it was a “clash”.  We must maintain consistency with wording regarding use of pepper spray.

  • Anonymous

    …Black Friday Shopping Rage come early at Wal Mart?

    Still, according to Megyn Kelly, it’s just a vegetable oil (Pepper Spray) by product and no real harmful affects.

    No big deal then…

  • Anonymous

    nothing news busters says is factual or true.. ever . just another right wing extremist hack site

    good try though.. pics of the incident speak the truth

  • Anonymous

    Half the people were waiting in line to get their copy of the new Andy Williams album

    ” A Lyin’ A**  B***h Christmas”.

  • Moderate

    It beats the hell out of a  cudgel, baton, truncheon, nightstick or bludgeon across the side of the head. If you encircle a group of cops, expect to suffer the consequences.

  • Anonymous

    I don’t know what that anchor is talking about.  I can’t shop at place with a violent logo like Target .

  • richs

    You mean its not a food by product?  What is it then?

    Have you ever been pepper sprayed?  I have.  Care to discuss its effects?

  • Moderate

    That is confirmed by a video which the media chooses not to show.

  • Farnsworth

    It’s PC gone mad when you can’t pepper spray 20 people in the name of amazing bargains without some do-gooder telling you that you’re under arrest.

  • Anonymous

    ‘…If you encircle a group of cops, expect to suffer the consequences.’

    …You’re very funny!

    As far as the news reports and the video suggest those kids at their UC were sitting down in what looks suspiciously like a Peaceful ‘Sit In’ Protest when Lt Pike decided to get excessive with his Pepper Spray.

    Sadly, the Police involved are now paying the ‘consequences,’ for their trigger happy responses.

  • Anonymous

    Is pepper spraying is now the norm in the USA?
    Gee, I wonder where she got that idea?

  • News Of The World

    She even trolls on holiday weekends.  Sad life you lead.

  • Anonymous

    The Black Friday craziness is one of the worst Holiday traditions I can think of. I worked in retail a long time and saw it get increasingly worse as major companies competed to slash prices and open early.

    I kept hoping some company would promote stopping the craziness and spread the bargains out, not open at crazy hours. People acting crazy to save a few bucks. totally unnecessary.

  • Anonymous

    Thank you for that, somewhat meaningless stream of questions.

    Let me direct you to this somewhat more enlightening article quoting the surprisingly, irritated inventor (Kamran Loghman) of the ‘Pepper Spray.’

    ‘The criticism over UC Davis’ police dousing non-violent protesters with pepper spray has extended to the man who invented the crowd-control device.

    Kamran Loghman helped develop pepper spray into a weapons-grade material while working with the Federal Bureau of Investigation in the 1980s. After seeing how his invention was used against student demonstrators in Davis, Loghman said police violated his original intent.’

    http://www.allgov.com/Top_Stories/ViewNews/Pepper_Spray_Developer_Denounces_Use_by_UC_Davis_Police_111125

    How surprising and yet not…

  • OSux

    Like a typical liberal JohnJGay supports cop killers and wished that those honorable police officers were killed.  He would applaud the next cop killer celebration at the White House.

  • Anonymous

    I hope all you Black Friday shoppers got your zombie vaccine. 

  • Anonymous

    ‘Like a typical liberal JohnJGay supports cop killers and wished that those honorable police officers were killed.  He would applaud the next cop killer celebration at the White House.’

    …What a nonsensical and rather pathetically meagre diatribe. 

    It excels your usual ‘OSux’ standards of homophobic projection and wanton violence.

    …Dare I suggest, it rather obviously pointed in your choice of name.

  • OSux

    There is a reason why it is called Black Friday.

  • Valkyrie101

    That’s stupid.

  • Liberal Economic Destruction

    You have reached the nirvana of political correctness, the zenith! We can only hope that where ever you do shop, you will be pepper sprayed.

  • Liberal Economic Destruction

    “No big deal then…”    EXACTLY!!! Spray yourself and every liberal you know!

  • Anonymous

    ‘EXACTLY!!! Spray yourself and every liberal you know!

    …Why not let Lt ‘Trigger Happy’ Pike do it for you LED? 

  • Liberal Economic Destruction

    You have a Rupert Murdoch obsession. The correct liberal spelling would be “News Of The WHIRLED”. And please identify the ‘holiday’ by name, in this case it is called Thanksgiving. Holiday in the UK simply means ‘vacation’. Holiday in the USA means politically correct liberal derangement. CAPICHE? Sad birth defected liberal.

  • Just some Blow Hard…

    I think there is a PC game like that

  • Just some Blow Hard…

    just marking her territory.

  • Liberal Economic Destruction

    You have a Rupert Murdoch obsession. The correct liberal spelling would
    be “News Of The WHIRLED”. And please identify the ‘holiday’ by name, in
    this case it is called Thanksgiving. Holiday in the UK simply means
    ‘vacation’. Holiday in the USA means politically correct liberal
    derangement. CAPICHE? Sad birth defected liberal.

  • Liberal Economic Destruction

    If pepper spraying will control the deranged liberal population it should become the norm! With any luck, some pepper spray will enter your eyes and you wont be able to see your keyboard to type idiotic liberal bullsh it anymore!

  • Anonymous

    Also YouTube as far as I can tell. Damn liberal YouTube.

  • Anonymous

    Don’t taze me bro!

  • Anonymous

    Mortal Kombat? Someone’s still living in the 90′s. 

  • Anonymous

    Well, the leftwing OWS freaks are at it again.

    Someone should get out one large can of Raid or Black Flag and spray those Commie fuggs.

    I for one love to see leftists run for the hills, being chased by people like me who hate their f___ing guts.

  • Anonymous

    bwahahahaha

    projecting again I see.

    So funny.

  • Anonymous

    I always hoped to hear that a truck ran over Amy Goodman, backed up to see what it had hit, and ran over her again.

    Damn, I would pay to see that. Funny fugging stuff.

  • Anonymous

    “…in what looks suspiciously like a Peaceful ‘Sit In’ Protest.”

    No, that’s members of The Tea Party.

    The OWS Loserdom is busy crapping, pissing, farting, smoking, fugging, and licking their way to full-on disgust.

    You have the peaceful Tea Party, and the violent Leftwing Flea Party, covered with Fleas and Feces.

    Now THAT is a contrast for your little mind.

  • keninkansas

    “Unidentified.” Gee, I wonder why?

  • Anonymous

    “It beats the hell out of a  cudgel, baton, truncheon, nightstick or bludgeon across the side of the head.”

    Yeah, I miss the days when you could shove a liberal in front of a moving train and all you got was a $10 fine for doing it. Now you have to go to court, you have to clean up the mess, you have to go buy a new wrench or tire iron, you are forced to hear the whines and squeals from their demented family, etc….it is just too much work to really crunch a moronic and imbecilic leftist anymore.

  • Anonymous

    …Any sense or reasoned logic have clearly parted ways, in what, may be left of your mind.

    Therefore, I shall quite happily leave you to it Mr Gideon…

  • Anonymous

    And why is that?

  • Anonymous

    The video exists; I don’t know why TC doesn’t link to it.  Facts are facts; you pretend they don’t exist, but alas…they do.

  • Steve85

    you’ve already outed yourself as a flat out racist on the rev. al thread.  maybe you shouldn’t go there sux.

  • Rex the Wonder God

    Ya, that damn liberal media. This is JUST LIKE that video that PROVED that Michele Obama was raving and ranting about “Whitey”, that the media ‘conveniently’ overlooked in 2008, which my neighbor Fred told me this guy he met in a bar this one time somewhere, nice guy, not really much of drinker at all recally, with no reason in the world to lie – Fred had never even met the guy before, never seen him since, doesn’t know his name – said he’d actually seen it on a TV news show some place, couldn’t recall the place or the channel or exactly when, but now no one in the world can seem to find it, so you just know the liberal media got ordered by those Obama thugs to destroy all copies, and everyone, even Drudge, that flaming commie, went along with it, no questions asked, and now there’s even a conspiracy to hide THAT which we know because no one will dare admit it.

  • Rex the Wonder God

    You can see it happening right here on this website, all these genuine authentic liberals outing themselves just like you, ASHAMED at themselves for having voted for that privileged Kenyan Marxist Socialist dictator sleeping Lincoln’s bed and making secret deals with his boss Kim Jong Il to take over the New World Order with Hugo Chavez as the head of the World Police to force us all to bend over and just TAKE IT, no questions asked.

  • Rex the Wonder God

    Oh yes, I SOOOO love vehicular homicides of Nazi Marxist Socialist Communist lame stream media types, I wish there was a cable channel to watch that 24/7.

  • keninkansas

    Capon, your act is sooo boring…

  • Rex the Wonder God

    You can see now the reason for Pike’s casual Pepper Spray incident: it was anticipatory self-defence in case any of those hippies were thinking of going to WalMart on Black Friday, and using his laser-like precision profiling software, officer Pike distinctly detected that contingency.

  • keninkansas

    tommy only tells his side of the story, that’s why he’s considered a hack

  • Rex the Wonder God

    The tape was EDITED, isn’t it OBVIOUS, George Soros’ tell-tale fingerprints are all over it, because there’s no way that’s what happened without Obambi having put his boot heel all over the CIA and the FBI to gather up all tapes and burn them before some courageous patriot like Andrew Breitbart got hold of one.

  • Rex the Wonder God

    Yeah, they hold those Cop Killer celebrations on a weekly basis now but swear the media to eternal secrecy on penalty of imprisonment or worse, and the media goes along with it no questions asked, so NO ONE ever gets to know about it.

  • Rex the Wonder God

    That’s just an assumption by you and your liberal bias: he could be the last surviving member of the Osux tribe that broke off the Trail of Fears and hid themselves in Alabama for all these years.

  • Rex the Wonder God

    “The OWS Loserdom is busy crapping, pissing, farting, smoking, fugging, and licking their way to full-on disgust.”
    And they have a Junior Occupiers camp to indoctrinate all stray children in how to do all that, and Obama is behind everything, as usual.

  • Rex the Wonder God

    Also, government regulations are taking all the fun out of it.

  • Anonymous

    …I sadly, fear you may be right.

  • Rex the Wonder God

    Is that out already?

  • Rex the Wonder God

    Yeah and that’s exactly why they called those Commies in Russia bullsh-evicts.

  • Rex the Wonder God

    Help, we’re being enlightened!

  • Rex the Wonder God

    Yeah, try to be reasonable and refer to them by the most respectful terms you can think of, and all tehy do is just take offence and yell “Political Incorrectness”.

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_D375NQT2E7RAFFL4EOUIC3E36A JBC

    now THERE’S a quick and witty answer.  John….give it up, buddy. you’re not even remotely funny

  • Rex the Wonder God

    There’s just no room for decent conservatives any more to chase leftists into the hills.

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_D375NQT2E7RAFFL4EOUIC3E36A JBC

    and boot heel? more like stilettos. makes his legs and butt look better, according Foxworthy!

  • Farnsworth

    I like when idiots don’t get jokes.

  • Anonymous

    Shoppers = The true 99%
    OWS = #@&*&#$     (Sorry it is against the rules of this site to use such words)

  • End Tolerance

    A liberal concedes the liberal problem!

  • Anonymous

    What in the hell is wrong with people?Have we really gotten so materialistic that we are willing to harm others just to get our hands on something that has no real importance in our lives?Is it so important to be impressive to a family member or friend through gift giving that the health and well being of strangers has no meaning?

    And what does it say that people would be willing to go to these lengths for a gift?What does it say about anyone who would require an impressive gift?

    Stories like these are unfortunate reminders of a whole list of things that are wrong with our society.We can only hope that the broadcasting of something like this causes others to give pause before acting in a similar way and take the time to realize what really matters during the holidays.

  • End Tolerance

    You just ‘outed yourself’ as either a deranged liberal, a homosexual, a transsexual or all three! The word raaaayciss means nothing anymore. Liberals destroyed it’s definition, thank God. You are easy to recognize in public as you try to clear the pepper spray from your eyes.

  • End Tolerance

    I won’t, I prefer pepper spray, it makes you look like a crying liberal!

  • End Tolerance

    Liberals don’t tell jokes.

  • End Tolerance

    You accidentally just made the first correct recommendation in your entire backward liberal life. CONGRATS!

  • Rufus Danegro

    Rex..you are awesome!

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_D375NQT2E7RAFFL4EOUIC3E36A JBC

    its not even a tradition.

  • Anonymous

    …No doubt.

    Mr Intolerant Genius.And if you believe that, you also probably believe in Leprechauns.

    Congratulations…

  • Anonymous

    CMON MAN  !!!you wingnuts need to MAN UP….liberal students take pepper spray like champions…hardly a reaction to that FOOD PRODUCT….but you sissies on the other hand crap on yourselves when sprayed….all show and no go is what you hobbits are all about…..OBAMA IS GONNA MOP THE FLOOR WITH YOU SOFT ASS MOFOS

  • Anonymous

    Rogue, read and see the protestor was talking to interviewer Amy Goodman of Democracy Now!!  You can’t handle the truth!!

  • http://twitter.com/runforfun54 Ilene K

    Hey, I guess she saw it was good enough for the cops to spray innocent kids …

  • Anonymous

    You want a conspiracy to hide??  Obama, Chicago gay club “Man’s Country”,  2 dead(executed) gay choir  guys , friends of Obama- Rev. Wright and his “DLC”  Down Low Club-….

  • Anonymous

    Looking at that picture I’d say the natives are restless.

  • Anonymous

    Psssst, lunch is on you, b*tches!

  • Anonymous
  • Anonymous

    Monkey see, monkey do.

  • Anonymous

    How strange…

    Now it has become popular culture as a artistic post modern description.

    …Well, Lt Pike has now synonymous with the infamous Pepper Spray incident…

  • Anonymous

    “Cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war, that they might scamper through Walmarts door!”–  Wm. Shakespeare helped with the first bit.

  • Anonymous

    What if you recast it and your the one running?  Stranger things have happened.  Always be careful what you wish for.  Once, the cork is out of the bottle things get unpredictable.  Swords have a way of swinging both ways.  I invoke the slippery (with capsaicin) slope, Sir.

  • Anonymous

    Spray ye not, lest ye also be sprayed.  Indeed.

  • Anonymous

    Imagine Sarah Palin with a canister in dispersal mode captioned, “Spray baby, spray!”  I used to do cartoons in my high schools paper.  Perhaps rightly, many never made it to publication. LOL

  • Anonymous

    Yes sir, and there’s an Alvin and the Chipmonks version out that makes one think of following Richard Cory’s example.

  • Liberals In Space

    You have a Rupert Murdoch obsession. The correct liberal spelling would
    be “News Of The WHIRLED”. And please identify the ‘holiday’ by name, in
    this case it is called Thanksgiving. Holiday in the UK simply means
    ‘vacation’. Holiday in the USA means politically correct liberal
    derangement. CAPICHE? Sad birth defected liberal.

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_FSPIVAFYI672OH5NOKVRTEZA4U MadCharles

    Hahaha… MSNBC is flashing sales watchers are hoping for 500 billion in sales this wkend. 2010 Black Friday was only 11 billion.  I don’t think they’ll get to 500 b even without the occupooh’s protesting what they’ll go shopping for when they finish protesting.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Joyceann-McDaniel/687402834 Joyceann McDaniel

    The major store chains should be ashamed.  People have been killed in the ritual yearly practice.  There are ways to spread the savings over several days, in house sales over the microphone, etc to cover the excitement of the season.  This was unnecessary and the sprayer should be found and prosecuted.  She was not being attacked,  Pepper spray by the populace is to be used in self defence only.  I don’t need anything bad enough to send a fellow shopper to a medic.  I can get better deals online.

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_KTGBZJK3V24FVB3ZJYZIH62HDA Eric

    I’m confused.  Megyn Kelly on Fox News dismisses pepper spray as a food stuff, yet the police in California want to charge a woman for assault for using pepper spray.  They way I see it, the woman in Wal-Mart was giving some much needed nourishment to midnight shoppers.  We need more in-depth reporting on this issue.

  • ms.patriot

    those kids were not innocent! They were tresspassing!! That is what laws are for fool!!

  • ms.patriot

    Wow, you clearly have drank way to much kookaid!  The kids didn’t take it like pros they are pieces of feces! They were breaking the law and got what they deserved. Go read the law, you fool before making such pathetic liberal gibberish!

  • Anonymous

    at this point it is, It has become one, encouraged by greed over taste and sense, on both sides.

  • John Kliber

    Amy Goodman has Che Guevarra pajamas.

  • Anonymous

    Excellent. Love the literary humor. That combines the heights and the ridiculous depths.

  • Anonymous

    Dehumanizing your fellow man is much more vile and repugnant than any collection of bodily functions you deem grotesque.

    No wonder you use the name of a Hebrew (Gideon) that ethnically cleansed the indigenous population of Midian.

  • Anonymous

    The cops were ordered to remove them and their tents. If an idiot sits in the middle of Interstate 35 and blocks traffic, the cops will remove them However, in this case, the cops could have used batons and busted testicles. That would really upset you flaming liberals. You believe in law enforcement as long as it does apply to liberals, Reminds ne of Obama and the professor.

  • Anonymous

    You failed to explain why you were sprayed…….

  • Anonymous

    Thye tell lies and the lies are the jokes.

  • Anonymous

    One of the things I like about this site is that many of the posters are very well read people,  on both sides of the political spectrum.  I find I don’t have to “self edit” like I do when I’m speaking to folks in the real world who don’t always share some of my more more specialized interests.  I thought I might have pushed too far in this thread, so thanks for the positive remark.  Sometimes, I troll rather shamelessly for kindred spirits.  It helps transit the shortest distance between two points.

  • Anonymous

    You are most welcome.  The combination of the literary heights of the bard with the contemporary mundane, along with our human failings, was well done.

    {I’m borrowing it}

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