LOS ANGELES, CA – Thousands of people marched to Los Angeles County malls and stores on Friday for Black Friday amid increased police presence in response to recent flash mob thefts and thefts at gunpoint.

The Los Angeles Police Department “will devote resources to some of these upscale locations to deter further violence,” Chief Michel Moore told the police commission at its Tuesday meeting, a day after a armed robbery. by at least 20 people at the Nordstrom store at the upscale Grove Mall in the Fairfax neighborhood.

Groups of suspects entered several stores in the Beverly Center on Wednesday and seized merchandise without paying and fled, according to an LAPD statement.

Thieves also attacked a security guard and stole designer handbags valued at $ 25,000 from the Nordstrom store at Westfield Topanga Mall in Canoga Park on Wednesday evening.

Customer Monica Garcia told ABC7 the theft was “very disturbing” and made her “reluctant to come to Nordstrom or even the mall for that matter to come and do my shopping.”

Citadel Outlets in Commerce stores opened for Black Friday at 8 p.m. Thursday with new security measures in place.

“Let’s just say that within a minute or two of an alarm sounding, requiring the centers to be closed as much as the access to the interior or the exterior, we are quite capable of doing it,” said director David Blagg told ABC7.

While Black Friday is considered the traditional start of the Christmas shopping season, it “ceased to be a one-day event years ago, and this year some consumers started shopping for Christmas. this Halloween, ”said Matthew Shay, president and CEO of the National Retail Federation, the world’s largest retail association.

“Consumers are starting earlier than ever to make sure they can get what they want, when they want it, at the price they want to pay,” Shay said.

Shay said he “expects another record breaking holiday season this year and Thanksgiving weekend will play a major role as it always has.”

A survey conducted for the National Retail Federation by Prosper Insights & Analytics found that 158.3 million people expected to shop from Thanksgiving Day to Cyber ​​Monday, up from 156.6 million in 2020 and 165.3 million in 2019.

The survey found that clothing continued to top the list of what people consider buying during Christmas shopping at 53%. Gift cards come second with 46%, followed by toys (39%), books / music / movies / video games (35%) and food / candy (31%).

The best toys for boys according to the survey were Legos; cars and trucks; Hot wheels; PlayStation; video games; nerve; “Paw Patrol” toys and products; remote control cars; Xbox and Pokémon game systems.

Barbie dolls topped the girls’ list, followed by any doll and LOL Surprise! dolls. Legos were fourth, followed by Apple products and smartphones. American Girl dolls and baby dolls are tied for sixth place. Clothing and accessories tied for eighth with merchandise related to Disney’s animated musical “Frozen.” Disney and Disney Princess merchandise were 10th.

Last Chance for Animals held its 35th annual ‘Fur-Free Friday’ event in Beverly Hills on Black Friday, calling for a global ban on fur and for retailers to stop selling it. A bill enacted by Governor Gavin Newsom in 2019 bans the sale of fur products in California on January 1, 2023.

Black Friday is also the 30th annual “Buy Nothing Day”, billed as “a 24 hour moratorium on consumer spending” to “untangle your mind from the buying compulsion, the addiction that is wreaking havoc on more than ever before. our nature and our mind. environments, ”according to Adbusters, who designed the day.

Suggested activities for “Buy Nothing Day” include setting up a table with a pair of scissors in a shopping mall to provide passers-by the option to cut their credit cards and organize a group. to push “empty shopping carts down a long, inexplicable conga line without ever buying anything.”

Adbusters describes itself as “a global network of activists, writers, artists, designers, hackers, crooks, poets, philosophers and punks”.

City News Service