Black 'Insane' Friday

Neither the wife or I went to the malls this morning. After reading this news from the Sun-Sentinel, we're glad we didn't.

Open Post- Don Surber, Adam's Blog, Common Folk

A crowd of shoppers outside BrandsMart USA in Sawgrass Mills, angry at being forced to wait by security personnel, pushed their way under a metal security gate and stampeded down a hallway into the store, pushing dozens of people against the walls and trampling a 73-year-old woman.

"I was trying to get out of the way but they knocked me down," said Josephine Hoffman of Coconut Creek, who was standing immediately outside the gate as a human wave rushed inside, carrying her along.

"I hit my head on the floor and people stepped on me," said the woman, who was resting on a box of merchandise inside the store following the 7:30 a.m. incident. "I don't understand why people do these things."

A store manager asked if she needed medical attention and called for assistance, while Hoffman's two daughters phoned the police.

Moment before the crowd burst under the metal gate, Tony McLeod, another BrandsMart manager, tried to calm down shoppers, telling them the store could only allow groups of about 20 to enter the store at one time to avoid overcrowding.

BrandsMart personnel tried to keep the total number of shoppers in the store to about 500 to meet fire department regulations, he said.

"There is more than enough for everybody. The sale is going on all day," he shouted, as frustrated shoppers shouted back, complaining they were tired of waiting.

"We have your money out here," one woman responded angrily. "We need to go to other stores. I can't stand here all day."

One man shouted through the gate that he had been waiting for an hour and half. A woman from Brazil, nearly in tears, asked in Portuguese if she could be allowed inside because her husband was already there. Others complained that security personnel lowered the metal door and left them isolated from family members.

Inside the store, shoppers were calmer. There were a few hundred people inside since the store opened, but the aisles were not crowded and most of those inside were waiting patiently in long lines to reach one of the store's 17 cashiers.

People began lining up at BrandsMarts two entrances before 4 a.m. Friday, hoping to snag some of the doorbuster specials or hundreds of other discounted items. "We came in about 4:45 and there were already lines," said Cosmo Adamo, the general manager.

By 6 a.m., when the store opened, hundreds of people waited in long lines snaking around the building outside the main entrance, which faces a Sawgrass Mills parking lot, and at the mall entrance.