Black Friday Brawls Erupt In US Shopping Malls

Fights have broken out in malls across the US as shoppers swarm for the holiday season retail frenzy known as Black Friday.

Video from Louisville, Kentucky, shows two men wrestling on the floor in a punch-up at a shopping centre on Thanksgiving night, knocking over a female bystander.

A police officer breaks up the fracas and one of the combatants picks up a dropped shopping bag before his friends usher him away.

Another fight circulating on social media shows an altercation between a group of men at a shopping centre in Florence, Kentucky.

Onlookers cry out "World Star" in both clips, a reference to a hip hop website that aggregates fight videos.

In other footage, a shopper appears to swing at a police officer during a free-for-all at a Walmart in El Paso, Texas.

Such melees on Black Friday, the busiest shopping day of the year for US stores and malls, have become almost as traditional as watching NFL games.

The chaos was brought into sharp focus in 2008 when a Walmart worker in Long Island was trampled to death by stampeding bargain hunters.

About 135.8 million consumers will shop during this four-day US holiday weekend, according to the National Retail Federation.

The group also expects sales for the last two months of this year to be $630.5bn ($419bn).