Alex Thomas
A Michigan Foot Locker was transformed into a battleground when a pair of drunken shoppers decided to scrap with employees on Black Friday.
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The video of the fight surfaced on Tuesday morning when Ronnie Elhouli, who recorded the brawl, told WDIV “it was nothing but swinging, grabbing, slamming to the floor.” He added, “when I put the phone down, I was making sure something won’t go flying at me. There was shoes flying everywhere, or someone pushed into me.”
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The battle occurred in the Fairlane Town Center in Dearborn, Michigan and Police Chief Ron Haddad says that, from the moment the shoppers entered the store, they were looking for a showdown. Elhouli says that screams pierced the air before the punches started flying. The customers were arrested for drunkenness as well as assault and battery. The manager, who was hit during the quarrel, suffered a few bruises; Elhouli says “the employees showed restraint, but they also contained the situation so no one else got hurt.”
Haddad says that the shoppers didn’t have any money, telling WDIV “for them to be there demanding someone to wait on them, it just doesn’t fit. Maybe their judgement was impaired but now they have some answering to do.”
RELATED: Black Friday protestors call for more police accountability in Chicago
Black Friday has become known for the fistfights that ensue when shoppers are battling for the same items, but the Michigan incident doesn’t seem to have stemmed from an argument over goods. Nevertheless, there were plenty of fiery customers across the country who gave shoppers everywhere a bad rap. Four adult men in a Walmart embarrassed themselves pretty pitifully when they got in a fight over a toy car. The video of their fight quickly went viral and a mall in Alabama was forced to shut down after a fight turned ugly inside a store.
https://twitter.com/jasonrmcintyre/status/934080668761448449
But for the most part, Black Friday shoppers had a successful day. Stores reported record sales, especially online where customers spent a whopping $5 billion — up 17 percent from last year, per CNN Money. But there were definitely some stumbling blocks in the road. Macy’s, the sort-of unofficial retail sponsor of the holidays, lost a lot of business when the credit card machines in their stores across the nation went down.
