Chaos erupts over Nike shoes

The national debut of a limited-edition line of Air Jordan sneakers caused a brief but frenzied disturbance at a South Richmond shopping center Friday that required police to respond in force to restore order.

By some estimates, as many as 300 people swarmed the DTLR urban fashion store when the doors opened at 10 a.m., with some shoppers who had been waiting for hours being crowded out or pushed aside. No fights, arrests or injuries were reported, but line jumpers caused some anxious moments when they tried forcing their way inside, witnesses said.

At least half a dozen Richmond police officers and an ambulance rushed to the scene to quell the unruly crowd.

"It got a little bit out of control, so they called the police," said Richmond police Lt. Mauricio Tovar. The chaos subsided once the shoes sold out, he said.

The Richmond disturbance was one of many reported nationally as crowds gathered two days before Christmas at stores selling the debut re-release of the Air Jordan XI Concord with a suggested retail price of $180.

Several people were arrested outside a Lithonia, Ga., mall after a large crowd broke down a mall entrance in their quest for the shoes. Meanwhile, police in Pineville, N.C., had to break up fights and restore order among shoppers, many who had waited overnight, outside another mall; 40 officers were called to the scene. And in Tukwila, Wash., police used pepper spray to avert a full-scale riot among a crowd of about 1,000 waiting outside another mall, according to news accounts.

Police in Chesterfield and Henrico counties reported that there were large crowds waiting Friday morning at malls and strip shopping centers with stores selling the shoes, but there were no major disturbances reported.

At several locations in Henrico — including Regency Square, Virginia Center Commons and strip shopping centers in the county's eastern portion — police received a number of reports of people crashing or butting into lines, but no arrests were made.

"We were getting several disorderly calls all right at the same time as these places started opening up, because these people were camping all night," Lt. Rick Schurz said. "So obviously there was more crowd there than the store employees could deal with, so that was primarily why they started calling us."

At Southside Plaza in Richmond, "essentially they bum-rushed the store," said Florence Wilson, who was waiting in her car while her 15-year-old grandson, Ravon Wilson, stood in line outside the DTLR store. "My grandson got here at 5 o'clock and he was the 30th in line. And when the store opened, people just rushed up to the door and rushed in."

Wilson said people waiting in line — some since 11 p.m. Thursday — were "lucky" to have made it inside to get the shoes. Her grandson, who left empty-handed, was too upset to talk.

"This was the only thing that my grandson really wanted" for Christmas, Wilson said. "All of his friends ... got in, but he didn't." She said she was disappointed the store didn't have a better system in place to handle the demand.

"I didn't see any fights, but people were really upset about it," Wilson said.

Lamont Epps, who said he was a store employee, walked out with a couple of bags of shoes after things calmed and the crowd dwindled by 10:50 a.m.

"They really wanted the Jordans," Epps said of the crush of shoppers, which he estimated at 300. "It is what it is: Christmastime and people trying to get the shoes. You just got to deal with the people and their attitudes. You can't make everybody happy."

The shoe that made its debut Friday is a retro release of the Air Jordan XI Concord. The model first was released in 1996.

"People just like them and collect them," Epps said.

Said the Police Department's Tovar: "I guess next time they have something that hot, they'll give us a heads-up, I hope. So we're not caught by surprise."