USA TODAY International Edition
Video shows brawl in Arizona Bath & Body Works store
Two unidentified women were charged Saturday after a customer disagreement in a Scottsdale Bath & Body Works turned into a brawl with employees.
The disagreement started over someone cutting in line and was not mask- or race- related, said Sgt. Kevin Quon, a spokesperson for the Scottsdale Police Department.
The exchange became heated after one woman got too close to another woman “who had a child with her,” said Genevieve Denslow, who shared a video of the fight with The Arizona Republic, part of the USA TODAY Network.
“I was shopping and heard all the arguing so I went to that part of the store. The lady in black threw a bag at the African American lady and then that’s when all the pushing and hitting started.”
Denslow’s video went viral, and as of 6 p. m. Sunday has 8.5 million views.
The video shows one woman throw a bag at an employee’s face, and another woman pull an employee down by her hair.
A different video of the incident begins when a verbal fight already is happening. Three employees can be seen telling a woman to leave. A second woman walks up and begins yelling at her, and a third calls her “trailer park trash.”
The employees then try to separate the women. The second woman throws a bag at the third, hitting an employee’s face and starting a fight, while an employee again tries to get the first woman to leave and pushes her away from the fight, and that woman rips off the employee’s mask and grabs her hair.
As the first woman is pulling the employee’s hair, a second employee runs over and pulls the first woman down by the neck.
At one point at least four employees and two customers are seen wrestling and fighting. Security is not seen at any point in several videos of the fight.
Two female suspects have been criminally charged in the altercation, Quon said. Scottsdale police did not identify which two were charged.
Bath & Body Works deferred a re
quest for comment to their parent company, L Brands, which did not immediately respond.
Scottsdale Fashion Square said management wouldn’t comment on the incident until Monday.
State representative uses video to promote anti- mask bill
Despite police and witnesses saying the fight was not about masks, Republican state Rep. Joseph Chaplik of Scottsdale tweeted “Bath and Body Works employees at Scottsdale Fashion
Square are being put in danger by the requirement that they enforce mask mandates. Female employees in the viral video could have been injured.”
Chaplik then outlined his proposed bill, House Bill 2770, which would let businesses choose how to enforce mask mandates.
Last Wednesday, Chaplik compared the airborne COVID- 19 epidemic to the AIDS scare of the ’ 80s.
“We heard about that in the ’ 80s,” Chaplik said during Wednesday floor debate. “Yet no masks were required.” Chaplik’s bill passed shortly after.