The savings made her do it.
A woman shopping with her two kids at a Wal-Mart in Northridge figured she’d jump on the “casually pepper spray everything” train by pepper spraying other Wal-Mart shoppers to keep them from buying what was constitutionally hers:
A woman who pepper-sprayed other shoppers Thursday night at the Wal-Mart in Porter Ranch had armed herself with the caustic spray to gain an advantage in the fight for merchandise at the Black Friday sale, a fire captain said.
The woman, who is still being sought, used the spray in more than one area of the Wal-Mart “to gain preferred access to a variety of locations in the store,” said Los Angeles Fire Capt. James Carson.
“She was competitive shopping,” he said.
Twenty customers, including children, were hurt in the 10:10 p.m. incident. Shoppers complained of minor skin and eye irritation and sore throats, he said.
Given the number of deaths and injuries that have occurred over the years because of the Black Friday feeding frenzy, Wal-Mart might as well go all out and force shoppers to fight for low-low prices, Thunderdome-style. Outfit every shopping cart with chainsaws and an assortment of medieval weaponry, and livestream it to pay-per-view. The one percent could sip champagne and titter about how deliciously Dickensian it all is.
They would love that.
[cross-posted at Angry Black Chronicles]
Baud
Mistakes were made.
MikeJ
Pepper spray is essentially a coupon.
Cat Lady
Competitive shopping with essentially a food product. O plz have this be verbatim from The Onion, dear FSM. Bring on the cleansing meteor naow. kthx.
Linda Featheringill
That is assault, you know.
benjoya
non-hippies getting assaulted? THIS OUTRAGE MUST END!
Yutsano
Cause, you know, that makes it JUST FINE. Or something.
Mike G
@Linda Featheringill:
As punishment she will just lose a few vacation days, like NYPD’s Tony Baloney.
S. cerevisiae
Coming soon: K-Mart Kommandos
Jay C
Even worse, one report says Ms. Pepper actually got her Xbox, and paid for it before walking out.
Good store security at Wal-Mart, I see: maybe instead of additional “greeters”, they should have hired a few unemployed
mercenaries“contractors” to keep the Black Friday mobs in line…..PoliticalHack
@MikeJ: Brilliant!
Did you see the ad Kohls had run for their BF sales? In the middle of the commercial the main character reaches into another shopper’s cart and steals an item. I’ve been at Best Buy BF sales where fights have started over that activity…
tech98
Cue Fox Noise’s Megyn Kelly:
“Pepper sprayed at a store? It’s a free food sample, essentially. You don’t hear people complaining when CostCo does this”.
Cue the NRA:
“If everyone was carrying guns, this would have turned out much better.”
Next year: WalMart Black Friday Fight Club.
Donut
I just would not go anywhere near any kind of big box store today. They are bad enough as it is without adding in the amorphous threat of chemical weapons.
feebog
This particular Walmart is just a few miles from me. We never shop there except for Mapp Gas, which the needs for her bead making. A few weeks ago I attended a Neigborhood Council meeting in Porter Ranch and Walmart was asking for an variance to sell liquor. Most of the Stakeholders were firmly against it. A number of Stakeholders made it clear that they do not approve of Walmart’s treatment of their employees. I was there to give a presentation, so I did not comment, but the Neighborhood Council Board shot down the applicantion.
gnomedad
That was undoubtedly the Founders’ Original Intent.
AndoChronic
This is totally classist but what the hell! http://www.peopleofwalmart.com/
WereBear
Shades of Lone Wolf and Cub.
Joseph Nobles
I smell a hit reality series.
The Dangerman
In the Competitive Shopping League, pepper spray is expressly forbidden; not bathing for a week prior or flatulence are perfectly within the rules.
Bago
The THUNDERDOME is awesome! Early in the week when they are still putting the camp together, they have a cage in the center that is called the “Thumberdome”. Each contestant gets a fresh thumb full of nail polish and the contestants engage in thumb wrestling.
Two thumbs enter, one thumb leaves!
cyntax
Props for the Thunderdome pic; haven’t been out to Burningman in a few years but the Thunderdome crew never disappoint.
Bago
For those of you unfamiliar with the pic, the THUNDERDOME is a burning man camp put together by the death guild people from San Francisco. If you want to fight, you get hooked up to a bungee harness and take your pugil stick to your opponent as you bounce around under the Kleig lights and cheering hordes that have scaled the sides of the dome. Good times.
The Bearded Blogger
With an event like this, a sane society would contemplate re-thinking its priorities…
Anoniminous
A Real American© would have shot the buggers for attempting to purchase HER stuff.
SiubhanDuinne
My cousin told me about this early this morning, and I actually posted a comment about it on Soonergrunt’s thread at 10:55am:
ETA: I just posted the same on John Cole’s post about the very same topic one thread over.
AxelFoley
What the hell is going on with this pepper spray shit? Is that the new black?
AxelFoley
Ok, we know for sure she was a white lady. If she had been black, it would have been “assault with a deadly weapon”.
See Katrina, Media coverage of blacks and whites during
AxelFoley
@Jay C:
The balls on this chick, LOL.
Mnemosyne
I managed to wake up with a migraine on my fucking DAY OFF, but the one and only Black Friday sale I was even considering trying to hit was at my local bike store.
I did buy a bunch of stuff for our office’s Adopt-A-Family from Old Navy online — I couldn’t get in this morning (Pacific time), but the virtual traffic was all cleared up by this afternoon.
StonyPillow
Soylent green seasoning, essentially.
LongHairedWeirdo
@tech98:
HEY! You’re breaking rule 1.
Jebediah
If EVERYONE there had been armed with pepper spray, there would have been no problem.
/NRAtard
Although I am starting to suspect that the old saw about “an armed society is a polite society” might actually be bullshit.
AxelFoley
@Jebediah:
ROFL!
Horrendo Slapp (formerly Jimperson Zibb, Duncan Dönitz, Otto Graf von Pfmidtnöchtler-Pízsmőgy, Mumphrey, et al.)
If mace and walmarts had been around 2000 years ago, this would have been happening in the Roman Empire as it slid into history.
carpeduum
This is the hick frenzy you create when you combine walmart shoppers and $2 waffle irons. Check out the lady in the blue t-shirt…butt crack and all!
http://youtu.be/gkywyGoQ2yU
Doug Danger
I’ve fought in that very dome. And I’ll tell you right now that I’d rather be on playa with death guild than at Wal Mart.
Alan
http://www.hulu.com/watch/194723/saturday-night-live-black-friday
Since no one posted this yet…
Stu
How long until UC Davis hires her to head up their campus police department?
Paul in KY
@The Dangerman: How about a regulation brick in the purse?