Mall Brawls & Walmart Feasts: The Holidays’ Worst Shoppers

Hearing "I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas" for the 10th time over a store's loudspeakers can put any holiday shopper on edge. But this holiday season proved to be too much for more than a few retail patrons this past week. On December 26, in what will surely become the spark for a new MTV show, around 2,000 teenagers and young adults engaged in what NBC News described as "chain-reaction brawls," in a mall in St. Matthews, KY. The massive free-for-all brought 50 police officers to help those patrolling the shopping center when the fights broke out. Officer Dennis McDonald, a spokesman for the police, told NBC that it took about two hours to contain all the violence. But despite the size of the melee, no arrests were made, and it's still not clear what started the riot. A few days before Christmas brought a strange shoplifting incident to a Walmart in Lecanto, FL. On December 22, 25-year-old Josseleen Elida Lopez was caught eating food and drinking wine she had not paid for while traveling through the store on a motor scooter. Along with the wine, she managed to scarf down most of a rotisserie chicken, some sushi, and several cinnamon rolls — quite the holiday feast. In addition to being charged for the $30-plus of food and drink she consumed, Lopez also faces charges for possession of syringes, which, according to CBS Miami, Lopez told police she had filled with crystal meth.