Police responded to a tussle that broke out at the Jantzen Beach Toys 'R Us store as shoppers who'd started the line on Thanksgiving night clashed with late-comers gathering by the door. At the Northeast Portland Best Buy, shoppers complained of line-cutting and shoving.
Frayed nerves are often the norm on Black Friday. Yet this year the potential for tension seemed higher, as even more folks are financially crunched than in 2008 and retailers, too, are hurting and have cut back inventories.
"People were really pretty rude and pushing," said Tarin Elliot, who arrived at Best Buy around 12:30 a.m. and was leaving the store with a Nintendo Wii for her kids at 5:15 a.m.
She and others complained that fellow shoppers were selling -- for as much as $50 -- the free tickets Best Buy employees handed out to early birds to assure them they'd get a certain doorbuster deal.
That wasn't the only tactic aimed at calming shoppers that backfired.
Following last year's fatal trampling of a Wal-Mart employee in New York, the discounter kept most stores open all night to prevent another door-opening surge. But what that really meant, Portland shoppers said, was that they could fill their carts all night, but couldn't check-out until 5 a.m.
"People were standing there all night with their full carts. They were grumpy," said Carol Brashear of Gresham, who didn't know about the all-night deal and was irked to find the laptops and movies gone at Clackamas Wal-Mart.
"We almost got run over by crazy moms with shopping carts," added her daughter, Ashley Brashear.
At a Target store across town, Megan Clohessy, 21, of Troutdale said people seemed more selfish this year.
"People were going into the stores for that certain $3 something and they didn't care who was in their way," said Clohessy, who said she was pushed even though she's pregnant. "I've been doing this since I was 12 and this is the craziest year yet."
-Man it's great to celebrate Christmas isn't it? We can prove our love to our family members by putting ourselves thousands of dollars in debt in order to buy them crap. Because if we don't buy them presents, they may not know how cool we are...
And people wonder why we don't celebrate this holiday of misery.
Let's not forget about the Walmart worker who was KILLED by inconsiderate pricks who were so focused on Christmas shopping they didn't realize that they had trampled a human being to DEATH.
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