Thanksgiving shoppers square off

A scuffle, possibly between two families, breaks out at a Walmart in Palmdale.

Los Angeles County Sheriff ’s Deputy Anna Stebbins pulled up to the Walmart in Palmdale on Thursday night and came upon a pre-Black Friday scene she had heard about but had never experienced at the megastore:

Hordes of shoppers shouting in one another’s faces in the parking lot, and a crowd of more than 100 people gathered around them with their phones fixed on the fight.

Stebbins and about seven other deputies — the Palmdale station’s entire Thanksgiving evening shift, by her estimate — stepped out of their patrol cars and tried to break it up.

“It was a really crazy scene,” she said.

She spoke with employees working the “door buster” event, who told her they didn’t know whether the warring factions were yelling over a specific item or whether the fight was about something else.

Though no injuries were reported, the Palmdale scene was the latest chapter from the darker side of America’s Thanksgiving tradition.

At least 11 people have died from Black Fridayrelated injuries in the U.S. since 2006, including a Long Island, N.Y., Walmart employee who was trampled by a mob of shoppers in 2008.

The chaos has become so widespread during the sales that the Occupational Safety and Health Administration has issued safety guidelines for stores to protect employees.

The scuffle at the Palmdale Walmart began about 6:30 p.m., authorities said. Store employees told deputies they initially thought they had quashed the melee, but discovered that it had moved outside.

One of the people in the fight was said to have had a gun, Stebbins said, but deputies found no weapon. No arrests were made, she said.

“Emotions were high last night,” she said Friday. “But [people] didn’t tell us what started it. They were just way too angry.”

Stebbins said the problem seemed to be a fight between two families, with members calling in reinforcements to join them at the store.

“I’ve been to Walmart on Black Friday. I know they set the store up a certain way, they move things around,” she said. “They put certain items that are door busters — like a TV — in a grocery area. They try to make it as calm as possible.”

Authorities temporarily closed one entrance to the Walmart, but the store remained open, Stebbins said.

In California, several people have died and many others have been hurt during or following Black Friday sales.

Two women came to blows at a Palm Desert Toys R Us store in 2008, prompting the men they were with to also start arguing.

The younger of the two lifted up his shirt and flashed a handgun, pulling the grip from his baggypants pocket. The other man yanked out his own handgun and started chasing him down an aisle and firing, witnesses said. Both men died. In 2011, a woman at a Porter Ranch Walmart pepper-sprayed several customers in what authorities described as a “shopping rage” incident.

A San Bruno man was charged with two counts of vehicular manslaughter in 2013 when a Black Friday rollover crash killed two of his daughters and injured a California Highway Patrol officer. Authorities said he had been driving on three hours’ sleep.

Retailers, including Walmart, say they strive to maintain order on some of the year’s busiest days.

In recent years, Walmart has worked with crowdmanagement experts to develop Black Friday plans.

Each location spaces out its special sale products to smooth traffic flow. Walmart also lets shoppers see the store’s layout via an app to help them navigate.

“You’ve got families that go out in packs to go shop,” said Stebbins, the deputy. “Something happens and the whole family jumps in, and that’s what happened last night ... that was quite the scene to see.”