Black Friday Turns Violent, Again

It seems that, for some, the turkey-coma wasn't enough to calm the Black Friday frenzy. Already, violence has broken out outside several shopping malls — in Chicago, a police officer was dragged along by a shoplifters' car, while in Las Vegas, a shopper was shot in the leg after buying a television from a local Target.

At roughly 10 p.m Thursday, security officers outside a Kohl's retailer in Romeoville, outside Chicago, called the police to report two suspected shoplifters. When the police officers got there, the suspects ran to their vehicle, parked in the packed parking lot, and tried to make a getaway — at which point one of the policemen grabbed onto the car, in true Die Hard style, and was pulled along for several feet.

"As officers approached the front door, one of the two subjects ran out the door into the parking lot" and the officer chased him to a waiting car," said Romeoville Police Chief Mark Turvey. "The officer was struggling with the subject as he got into the car and then the car started to move as the officer was partially inside the car. The officer was dragged quite some distance. He couldn't get out."

The other policeman reportedly ordered the driver to stop the car, but, when he didn't, the policeman fired a shot at the suspect, hitting him in the shoulder. Three people have been arrested in connection to the incident, and both the injured driver and the dragged officer were taken to hospital for non-life-threatening injuries.

Meanwhile, at roughly the same time in Las Vegas, a Black Friday shopper, who was carrying home his new big-screen television he'd just bought from a local Target, was shot in the leg by someone reportedly trying to steal the TV.

“As the victim was walking through his complex he was approached by a suspect who fired warning shots which caused the victim to release the television,” said Lt. Gordon of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department. As the robber was putting the stolen TV in his car, the victim then went to him to try and get it back, at which point he was shot again.

“The suspect fired two more shots and the victim was struck in the leg,” Gordon said. “He was not seriously injured."Fights also broke out at Walmarts from Southern California to West Virginia, where a man was stabbed with a knife after threatening to shoot a fellow shopper over a Walmart parking space. At a Walmart in New Jersey, a man was charged with aggravated assault on a police officer, after getting into a fight with the store's manager over a TV set. While some Black Friday sales are worth the madness, I, for one, will be doing my shopping online, like over half of Americans who are also bloated on turkey stuffing.