Some people will do just about anything for a bargain—especially during the annual Black Friday sales, when deal-hungry shoppers wait for top-of-the-range gadgets to plummet in price.
But just one glance at the website 'Black Friday Death Count' tells you everything you need to know about this deadliest of discount deal days.
The site counts more than 17 deaths at Black Friday sales and over 125 injuries in various shootings, scuffles and stampedes from the past two decades.
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Whether it's an argument over a TV or a Toys 'R' Us shootout, there's something about discounts that sparks a deep, primal drive for violence in today's broken consumer society.
By far the two biggest Black Friday brawls, at least in terms of injuries, were caused by the introduction of pepper spray into the bargain hunt bedlam.
In 2010, a Los Angeles woman allegedly pepper-sprayed around twenty people, including children, to try and get the edge on her fellow shoppers. She reportedly used pepper spray in several areas of the store in her quest to snap up discount Nintendo Wii consoles, Xboxes, tricycles and Bratz dolls.
One customer, Alejandra Seminario, said at the time: "People started screaming, pulling and pushing each other, and then the whole area filled up with pepper spray. I did not want to get involved. I was too scared. I just stayed in the toy aisle."
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In another Black Friday brawl a year later, a local off-duty police officer was accused of pepper spraying 20 shoppers. One shopper said: "He was raining it over the whole crowd so it will rain down on their heads.
"Some of it got my granddaughter in her face and eyes, and she had to go to the emergency room because she's asthmatic." Local police disputed the claims and said they fired a single 'puff' of spray to try and make the crowd "regain composure" as Walmart staff finished stacking the shelves.
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Black Friday gets even darker than mass pepper-spraying, as the number of shootings in the US during the sales attests. In 2016, Black Friday began with a deadly shooting at a shopping centre in New Jersey. Two people were shot in the car park with one dying of their injuries just hours into the sales.
And, just last year, the sales sparked a shooting in a Walmart car park in Texas right before the shop was due to close. 28-year-old Jose Juan Vasquez was found with several gunshot wounds by police and later died.
As the Black Friday sales have increasingly moved online, they seem to have become safer than they once were. But, as the cost of living rises and people become more desperate for bargains, there's no saying what will happen this year.
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