A 20-year-old Oakland man was named as one of several suspects in a shooting that happened during a robbery in a store parking lot in San Leandro.
Police arrived at the scene at 15555 Hesperian Boulevard at around 1:50 a.m. and found a man had been shot, and his family members had detained a suspect, who police identified Friday afternoon as Tony Phillips of Oakland.
San Leandro Police Department spokesman Sgt. Mike Sobek said Phillips was arrested on charges of attempted homicide and attempted robbery. Police say Phillips lives on the 500 block of 48th Street in Oakland.
Sobek said police continue to search for accomplices. Phillips will be taken to Santa Rita Jail after being treated for injuries sustained while he was being subdued by the victim's family.
San Leandro police have released a booking photo of Phillips.
According to a report on KTVU, three suspects in a black vehicle pulled their car behind the victim's car, a red Volvo, and blocked it in, then tried to rob him.
When the shoppers refused to give up their purchases, one of them was shot. According to the KTVU report, the victim and his companions went after the suspects but two got away.
The Hesperian Boulevard Walmart listed its doors opening Thursday night at 10 p.m. for early Black Friday shopping and deals.
Sobek has described the incident as a "robbery gone bad."
Walmart parking lot entrances were reportedly blocked by numerous police cars at 4 a.m. after the shooting, a clerk said from the across the street.
An employee at a nearby , which opened at midnight, said Walmart closed right after the shooting. He said a few Walmart employees stopped by while waiting for it to reopen.
According to posts on Twitter, as of 7:30 a.m. the store had been reopened, but many shoppers who were there earlier were unable to retrieve their cars because part of the parking lot was blocked off. It appears to have been reopened.
Hilda Campos from Oakland arrived at the store around 4:30 a.m. to do some shopping with her family. However, after waiting three hours for the store to reopen and seeing the aftermath of the incident, she told Patch she was no longer interested in shopping.
"We're a little afraid at what happened," Campos said. "We thought getting a later start would be safer, but look what happened."
Walmart spokesman Greg Rossiter said the company was aware of the shooting in San Leandro.
“Our prayers go with the victim of this senseless act of violence,” he said.
Rossiter said Walmart was cooperating with the police investigation. He was not sure whether the store had any surveillance video of the scene.
The San Leandro shooting has become part of an unfortunate national pattern of Black Friday violence this holiday season.
In a similar incident in Florida, a woman was shot and a man hit in the head with a gun during an attempted robbery at a Walmart.
According to news reports, a Myrtle Beach, Florida, woman was confronted near her car in the store parking lot around 1 a.m. and ended up getting shot in the foot.
In an even more bizzare incident, at 10 p.m. on Thanksgiving night, a woman at a Walmart in the San Fernando Valley used pepper spray to drive away other shoppers trying to reach Xbox gaming consoles and Wii video games during an early-bird sale.
Police on the scene called it a "competitive shopping" incident.
At least 20 people were taken to a hospital, according to a Los Angeles County fire department official.
CNN reports that Black Friday violence also flared up in South Carolina, North Carolina, New York, Alabama and Connecticut, with most of the reported incidents happening at or near Walmart stores.
CNN interviewed psychologist Jeff Gardere, who put some of the blame on retailers for staging sales that encourage frenzied shopping.
"They shouldn't be psyching them up so much and using all sorts of psychological tactics to get them to feed into this desperation and competitive spirit," Gardere told CNN.
In one 2008 tragedy that gained national attention, a Walmart security guard was trampled to death in a store in Long Island, NY, and four other people, including an 8-month pregnant woman, were hospitalized.
Rossiter said that with few exceptions this year as in years past, Black Friday sales have proceeded without trouble at thousands of stores nationwide.
He said Walmart has worked with nationally recognized crowd control experts to ensure customer and worker safety inside and outside of stores.
Late night sales, he said, came in response to patron surveys.
“Our customers have told us they would prefer stay up late on Thanksgiving to shop rather than get up the next morning,” he said.
Analisa Harangozo and Bay City News contributed to this report.
