"It's been a very safe event at thousands of Walmart stores," Rossiter said. These were "a few unfortunate incidents."
Among those incidents:
• Police in a Phoenix suburb were under fire Friday after an online video showed a grandfather on the floor of a Walmart with a bloody face after officers said he was subdued trying to shoplift during a chaotic rush for discounted video games. The man's wife and other witnesses said he was only trying to help his grandson after the boy was trampled by shoppers, and that he put a video game in his waistband to free his hands.
• In Myrtle Beach, S.C., a man and a woman were injured as they were leaving a Walmart about 1 a.m. Friday. Assailants hit the man in the head and shot the woman in the leg, CNN reported, but fled when another shopper also pulled a gun.
• In Kissimmee, Fla., one man was arrested after a fight at a Walmart jewelry counter, police said.
• In Rome, N.Y., a fight soon after midnight reportedly landed two people in the hospital with minor injuries.
• And in San Leandro, Calif., members of a family trying to take their purchases home about 1:45 a.m. were accosted by three or four assailants, authorities said. One family member was shot after refusing to hand over the goods. Others wrestled one suspect to the ground; the other suspects fled. The pinned suspect was arrested, and the shooting victim was listed in critical but stable condition Friday.
The violence pales in comparison, though, to the 2008 Long Island incident in which "a throng of shoppers physically broke down the doors" of a Walmart, knocking to the ground and trampling a 34-year-old temporary employee, according to Nassau County officials.
The employee died of his injuries, and a Wal-Mart Stores statement at the time called the situation tragic.
Not nearly as tragic, but certainly headline-grabbing, was the pepper-spray incident late Thursday at a Walmart store in Los Angeles' San Fernando Valley. A woman trying to get her hands on merchandise used pepper spray to scatter the competition, authorities said.
Ten customers were slightly injured by the pepper spray, and 10 others suffered minor bumps and bruises in the chaos, police Sgt. Jose Valle said. They were treated at the scene.
