Six terrible things shoppers have done on Black Friday

Black Friday shoppers on Edinburgh's Princes Street. Picture: Lisa Ferguson

You have to wonder what makes some members of the general public turn into ruthless retail monsters during discount season.

A recent study by archaeologists at York University hypothesised that the human species owes its worldwide expansion to their ‘dark side’, as well as a need to put distance between themselves and their rivals. But not even science can justify snatching a kitchen appliance from a minor as a product of evolution, as one lady reportedly did in a US store today.

In the clip above, as shoppers scramble around on the floor in attempts to grab a discounted vegetable steamer (yes, a vegetable steamer), a woman can be seen aggressively snatching the item from the hands of a small boy before attempting to slide past his mother.

But the phantom steamer stealer is not the first person to act rashly in the heat of Black Friday. Here are five other shoppers who did terrible things for a Black Friday bargain.

Off-duty cop sprays shopping competitors

Gordon Jackson of Kinston, North Carolina was off-duty when he decided to pepper spray a number of Black Friday shoppers in Walmart in 2011. The footage was captured by an onlooker, who uploaded the clip to YouTube.

Kinston police force claimed the off-duty officer had been hired by the department store as extra security. According to NBC, a shopper explained that Jackson was “raining it over the whole crowd, so it will rain down on their heads.”

http://www.nbcnews.com/business/business-news/duty-police-pepper-spray-nc-shoppe...

US Marine stabbed by knife-wielding shopper

Most rational people would deem it unwise to take on an ex-Marine reservist, but a particularly riled shopper in Georgia, Alabama did exactly that. Corporal Phillip Duggan was picking up toys from a Best Buy department store as part of a charity gift campaign when he was stabbed by a bargain hunter who had been attempting to steal a laptop. The 24-year-old marine recieved treatment at hospital for his injuries.

Bedlam at Asda store in Northern Ireland

2013 was the first year Black Friday fever seemed to travel over to this side of the Atlantic, and an Asda supermarket in West Belfast became the scene of “frightening” disputes between bargain hunters.

The store in the Belfast’s Westwood shopping centre had been overwhelmed with customers, with one witness telling the BBC: “It was just a free-for-all. It was absolutely frightening.

“Two of my friends were injured. One was kicked in the stomach by a man who was trying to steal a TV from them”

Gun threats at a Toys ‘R’ Us

An American woman was arrested for disorderly conduct after threatening hundreds of shoppers with a gun - while attempting to cut in front of a queue at Toys ‘R’ Us in 2010.

Twenty-one-year-old Larrissa Lattimore reportedly threatened to retrieve her gun from home and shoot them after being called out for trying to skip the line.

The woman was later charged with disorderly conduct, telling CNN: “I just wanted to get my daughter the toy that she wanted for Christmas, which probably won’t be there when I go today.”

Employee cuts hand open following customer brawl

In a Reddit thread asking people to share their Black Friday horror stories, one Walmart employee described a particularly bloody accident.

“I was assigned to be one of the employees that would cut open the plastic on the pallets which contained our merchandise,” wrote wildfires, “which were all in the floor. Basically, as I readied [the] box cutter, I got shoved by a customer and I fell right on it and sliced my hand open. After getting through that and patching it up, I came out on the floor and promptly got punched in the face when I picked up a DVD on the ground. A customer apparently wanted it.”

Read more: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/1re0rl/retail_employees_of_reddit_what_are_your_black/