Black Friday Shopping Spree Brings Arrests, Disorder in UK: Reports

At least two people have already been arrested at Black Friday sales events in UK, Manchester Police reports.

MOSCOW, November 28 (Sputnik) — At least two arrests were made as crowds of shoppers in the United Kingdom flocked to major retail chains for Black Friday bargains, according to local media.

"At least two people arrested at Black Friday sales events already this morning," Manchester Police posted to its official Twitter feed, urging people to "keep calm."

Officers were called to a number of supermarkets in London and dozens of other locations across the UK to manage crowds of bargain hunters that scrambled, fought and injured each other over discounted products, as stated in numerous reports.

Online stores were similarly crippled shortly after midnight, as traffic shut down one retail website after another under "huge demand," according to the Daily Mail.

Black Friday has become Britain's busiest shopping day since it was imported from the United States in 2010, with an estimated 555.5 million pounds ($900 million) spent on this day alone, according to analysis by Econsultancy. Starting the day after Thanksgiving, Black Friday traditionally opens the Christmas shopping season in the United States with aggressive 24-hour sales promotions in thousands of stores.