Southern California Wal-Mart closes doors after Black Friday shoppers fight over merchandise
By APFriday, November 27, 2009
Scuffling customers close S. California Wal-Mart
UPLAND, Calif. — Police say a Wal-Mart store in Southern California closed its doors for several hours before dawn after some Black Friday shoppers began fighting over bargain merchandise.
Lt. Jim Etchason says officers in Upland, about 40 miles east of Los Angeles, were called to the store at about 2:44 a.m. and helped herd customers into the parking lot.
The store began allowing groups of customers back inside shortly before 6 a.m.
Etchason says by that time, everybody was getting along.
He says there were no injuries and no arrests.
Wal-Mart changed its procedures for Black Friday crowd control after a guard was asphyxiated last year when crowds broke down the doors of a store in New York state.
