At the White Marsh, Maryland Best Buy people began gathering for the 12/18 release at 11:00 pm, as the store closed. The Baltimore County Police Department was called by the Best Buy manager and we were all told we had to leave the premises or we would be arrested for trespassing.
We were assured by the manager and the police that we could return at 4:00 am ONLY and that ANYONE who arrived at the store before 4 am would be escorted off of the parking lot. This was confirmed by several signs on the front doors of this Best Buy.
The people at this time took a list of those waiting for X Boxes to prove we were the first people in line.
Predictably the manager and the police lied as we returned to the store at 3:50 AM to find 200 people lined against the Best Buy wall. When the manager and other employees returned to begin letting customers in panic ensued.
Understandably the people who had returned were upset since they were rightfully the first people in line and were only following police orders. The 200 others who had arrived after the "trespassing" threat also, understandably, believed they had the right to the units.
We offered a compromise. We reasoned that the 40 people on the original list and the first 40 people in the new line should all be given a number and then the 40 units would be raffled among those 80 people.
Because the people who work at this Best Buy have no more than a 4th grade education and couldn't be bothered with reasoning the situation out, the mob became unruly. They offered no explanation of what they were doing nor did they give the crowd direction.
Eventually the police officers used their batons on several people at the font of the line and threatened to "pepper spray" the whole group, even though there were children approximately 5 years old among the people. A man seemingly 80 years old was pushed away from the door and dragged by his collar by a police officer to his patrol car.
One officer commented to us that we had better be able to outrun their dogs since they were about to release them on the crowd.
The sad, pathetic aspect of this whole situation is that it easily could have been resolved by a person with an IQ above 70 and $60. How, you might ask? Smple. All Best Buy had to do was pay one of their employees $10 an hour for 6 hours to sit in front of the store until 4:00 am. He could have explained to anyone who tried to form the line that the line was not to be started until 4:00, as was documented on the door, and that they must leave the premises.
I guess $60 wasn't worth keeping some fingers from getting broken, an old man from going to jail, 5 year olds from hearing non-stop yelling and cursing and about 200 irate people from promising they would never return to Best Buy.
"Best Buy, where we don't give a damn about our customers, as long as their money is green!"
PS - Special kudos should also be given to the Baltimore County Police Departnemnt who not only straigh-out lied to the original people in line, but then followed up by having no ability to reason with the crowd without using words like "don't make me smack you, " "pepper spray, " "beat down" and in the true spirit of Christmas, "release the dogs."
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