Angry Black Friday Mob Loots Hollister Store

It may not have involved pepper spray, but things still got plenty ugly at the Hollister store in New York City early Friday morning. The problem began when people lined up outside the store mistakenly thinking it was going to open at midnight for the chain’s Black Friday sale. Only this particular store wasn’t part of the national promotion and was scheduled to open at 10 a.m instead.

Not aware of this, the crowd got angrier and angrier that the store hadn’t opened, and by 1:15 a.m. they were so pissed that they broke down the doors and let themselves in! Once inside, the frenzied mob started grabbing whatever they wanted, and none of the store’s employees could stop them. One bystander described the chaotic scene:

They were throwing things around and throwing clothes on the floor. One kid, he was being really loud and crazy and gathered up all these clothes and ran out of the store and started giving them to his friends. They were really wild. There were a couple employees there [stocking shelves], and they were shouting at people, “Stop! You’re breaking and entering and breaking the law!” But the people looting just ignored them.

How any of the looters managed to find anything inside the darkness-soaked labyrinth that is a Hollister store remains a mystery.