Rapid City Wal-Mart shopper may face assault charges

By Mary Garrigan, Journal staff | Sunday, November 30, 2008

Previous Page

Share

• del.icio.us
• Digg
• NewsVine
• Fark

Print

Email

A Black Friday shopping altercation between a 15-year-old girl and an unidentified man at the Rapid City Wal-Mart Supercenter may lead to an arrest for assault, a Rapid City police officer said Friday.

The teenage girl was holding an Xbox 360 video game when she was struck in the throat by a male shopper who was yelling and pushing his way through a line of shoppers, according to Sgt. Chris DeGroote. DeGroote wouldn't identify the juvenile but said she was treated at and released from Sioux San Hospital.

The incident paled, however, when compared to the death of an employee at a Wal-Mart store in Long Island, N.Y., where a 34-year-old man was trampled to death by a surge of Black Friday shoppers who broke down the store's door before it opened for business.

"It's a horrible tragedy," Rapid City store manager Mark Haberman said of the Long Island incident. "There's nothing in my store that's worth people's safety or lives."

Haberman said police were not called to his store, but the girl involved in the alleged assualt later reported the incident to police. No arrests had been made by Friday evening, but police are pursuing an investigation, DeGroote said.

"The gentleman was escorted out of the building," Haberman said. "You hope people will control themselves, but sometimes, they don't."

Elsewhere in Rapid City, Black Friday shoppers were polite, orderly and enjoying the shopping day that launches the Christmas retail season. Merchants and media call it Black Friday, referring to the beginning of the holiday period when retailers turn a profit.

Diane Roberts of Hulett, Wyo., admitted that she is keeping a close eye on the economy and watching her finances in some ways, but she said she won't let those worries interfere with her family's annual Black Friday shopping tradition.

"It's just fun," Roberts said. "We wouldn't miss it."

Roberts, along with her sister, her mother, her niece and assorted other family members, were spending money on Christmas gifts, meals and motel rooms. Lots of money.

Roberts estimated that she would spend about $1,000 on Friday, including a Spearfish motel room and a meal at Red Lobster in Rapid City. They began the morning at 5:08 a.m. at the Spearfish Wal-Mart, and by midday, the group had already shopped at Cabela's, Kmart, Scheels, Herbergers and Kohl's.

The line of people waiting to get into Kohl's at 4 a.m. went all the way around the department store building, according to Matt Mutschler, interim store manager.

"We had lines at all the cash registers most of the morning. The lines aren't as long or as crazy as last year's, but it was a good morning of sales for us," he said.

Most shoppers were looking for advertised Black Friday specials on electronics and housewares.

And many of them were paying with cash, not credit cards, Mutschler said.

"I noticed a greater number of people using cash and fewer credit cards," he said. "That tells me people don't want to use credit cards because of the economic situation. They don't want to take on more debt."

That was true for Chris Myers and Jenny Christianson, both of Rapid City. Myers, a delivery driver for a bread company, and Christianson, who works at a gas station, said they don't expect to cut back on Christmas spending this year because they aren't worried about unemployment in this economic downturn.

Myers estimated he had spend about $1,000 on gifts this year, most of them Black Friday specials like the $200 set of stainless steel kitchenware that he got on sale for $70. "The deals were good," he said. "We've saved about $300 so far today."

But they were paying for those deals with cash, not credit cards.

"The interest rates are too high," Christianson said.

Plenty of other people were charging their Black Friday purchases, however.

At Gordmans, a new clothing and home decorating discounter that opened in September, about 1,500 people had come through the doors by noon, and most of them were using credit cards, store manager Scott Maloney estimated. "A lot of Visa," he said. Black Friday sales were strong, Maloney said, and he predicted the slowing economy may even benefit a discount store like his.

Nearby, at the new Target store, where 2,000 people were lined up for a 6 a.m. opening, store team leader Matt Stewart warned against judging the coming Christmas retail sales by Black Friday numbers.

"It's been really busy, really strong today. But it's so hard to predict Christmas sales off of Black Friday specials. It's so skewed because you're offering a lot of hot items that are definitely bringing guests in the door."

Stewart predicted more early-season buying for Christmas this year as people budget for the holiday.

At Cabela's, store manager Mary Bollock was pleasantly surprised by the large crowds and the patient customers who waited in lengthy lines to buy lots of firearms and just about all of the store's advertised "doorbuster" specials.

On Black Friday at Cabela's, at least, there was no indication that people were worried about economic downturns. "We like to say people buy fun," Bollock said.