15 Unhinged Black Friday Stories

Some episodes of South Park age better than others. While Season One’s “Mr. Hankey, the Christmas Poo” smells as fresh as ever, Season Six’s skewering of Jared from Subway, “Jared has Aides,” does not hold up. Season 17’s Black Friday trilogy from 2013 falls into the latter category, as it captures a mostly pre-pandemic phenomenon where Black Friday sales lead to chaos and sometimes even death. 

Below you’ll find fifteen instances of Black Friday scandals, mishaps and general chaos that remind us just how savage the shopping holiday used to get.

15 First Blood

The first death attributed to Black Friday, according to the website Black Friday Death Count, occurred in 2008. “A Walmart worker died early Friday after an ‘out-of-control’ mob of frenzied shoppers smashed through the Long Island store's front doors and trampled him,” reported the New York Daily News. 

14 Stampede!

Two years before the first Black Friday death, a 2006 incident offered a sign of things to come. “An elderly woman and nine other bargain hunters were injured Friday in a rush for gift certificates dropped from the ceiling of a local mall. Some 2,000 shoppers rushed for 500 falling prize-filled balloons at the Del Amo Fashion Center, leaving nine with minor wounds and sending an elderly woman to the hospital,” ABC 7 in Los Angeles reported.

13 Peppered by Police

In 2011, when over-eager Walmart shoppers began grabbing for items before employees were done stacking them, “An off-duty police officer used pepper spray Friday on shoppers at a Walmart in Kinston, North Carolina,” NBC reported. 

12 Terror at Toys ‘R’ Us

“Two people are dead in a Black Friday shooting at a crowded Toys ‘R’ Us in Palm Desert, California,” reported CBS news on November 28, 2008. 

11 Even Kids Aren’t Safe

In 2011, M Live in Michigan reported that a teen girl was “trampled at a Walmart store.” While the injuries were minor, that doesn’t change the fact that reports said she was “knocked over and stepped on several times inside the Walmart.”

10 Parking Pandemonium

While nobody died this time, on November 23, 2012 another shooting broke out over a parking space at Walmart in Tallahassee, Florida.

9 A Nashville Robbery

In 2018, a Verizon in Nashville was robbed by armed gunmen. They took several phones and the store manager’s gold chain for what ABC 10 called “a total haul of roughly $22,000.”

8 An Alabama Shooting

Also in 2018, “A Thanksgiving night shooting at Alabama’s largest enclosed mall that left a gunman dead and two people – including a 12-year-old girl – injured,” reported CNN.

7 A Less-Than-Polite Canadian

Black Friday chaos isn’t exclusively American. In 2016, a shoe sale in Vancouver led to a fight in the street where a shirtless man began using his belt as a whip.

6 And Another

“A 27-year-old man has died after being shot in the parking lot of the South Keys Shopping Centre,” Canada’s CTV news reported on November 23, 2018. 

5 An Incident in South Africa

In a 2016 report about a woman injured during a shopping center stampede in South Africa, South Africa’s Eyewitness News reported that “The Black Friday shopping craze has taken South Africa by storm, with thousands of shoppers enduring long queues for massive discounts.”

4 Yes, ANOTHER Walmart Incident

In 2012, a drunk driver plowed into two Black Friday shoppers at a Walmart in Covington, Washington.

3 And Another

“Walmart officials say they are comfortable with the security in place Thursday night, despite three fights at a store (in Rialto, California) Thursday night,” The Sun reported on November 28, 2013 after a police officer was injured. The report continued, saying “Police said there were three fights total shortly after 7 p.m. at the store at 1610 S. Riverside Ave., two of which were inside over merchandise and the third outside that caused injury to the officer.”

2 And Another

“A 29-year-old shopper was pepper sprayed and arrested Thursday in a New Jersey Walmart after arguing with a store manager about a TV and attacking an officer,” NBC 4 in New York reported in 2013, making a Walmart officially the scariest place to be on Black Friday. 

A logo plug only seems fair at this point 1 The Original

The original Black Friday, however, had nothing to do with shopping. When the gold market collapsed on September 24, 1869, the date became known as Black Friday. That is, until places like Walmart reclaimed the moniker with their savings-infused violence and mayhem.

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