BLACK FRIDAY DEATH!! UPDATE MORE!!!!

[Bob_VT]

Obviously the West Coast takes shopping one step further....

Shots fired at Toys R Us in Palm Desert; 2 dead
12:42 PM, November 28, 2008
A gunman opened fire at a Toys R Us store in Palm Desert, killing two and causing shoppers at the busy store to scramble for cover.

Palm Desert Councilman Bob Spiegel told The Times that based on early reports, two rival groups shopping at the store had some kind of argument and then shots were fired. Two men were killed in the exchange of gunfire, he said.

Riverside County sheriff and fire officials responded to a report of a shooting and two gunshot victims at 11:32 a.m. at the toy store in the Desert Crossing Shopping Center at 72314 Highway 111, said Cheri Patterson, information officer for Riverside County Fire and Cal Fire, based in Perris.

"We have two dead individuals inside the store," Dennis Guitierrez of the Riverside County Sheriff's Department told the Associated Press. "The events of why the shots were fired is still ongoing."

Details about the shooting were still spotty, but witnesses said the scene at the store and nearby businesses was chaotic. Witnesses told TV stations that shoppers were evacuated at about 11:30 a.m. and were told a gunman was in the store.

“I’ve got a bunch of people from Toys R Us that ran out of the building,” Jeff Vallaire, a worker at a nearby World Gym, told the Desert Sun newspaper in Palm Springs. “I’m just hearing from what they told me. They ran out the back. They heard gunshots and came in here. ... It’s pretty crazy around here right now."

The Desert Sun quoted a Palm Desert city official as saying the shooting might have been caused by bad blood between two groups of shoppers. “There were two groups inside that had issue with each other,” Assistant City Manager Sheila Gilligan told the Sun. “And the two men inside pulled their weapons and shot each other.”

-- Richard Winton, Molly Hennessy-Fiske and Andrew Blankstein