Protests against police violence flare for third night in New York

By Robert MacMillan, Andrew Chung and Sebastien Malo

NEW YORK Fri Dec 5, 2014 11:58pm EST

1 of 33. A female protester, demanding justice for Eric Garner, holds a placard in Brooklyn, New York December 4, 2014.

Credit: Reuters/Elizabeth Shafiroff

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Protesters in New York and other cities rallied for a third night on Friday denouncing the use of deadly force by police against minorities, even as prosecutors said they would consider charges against an officer in the fatal shooting of a unarmed black man in November.

The slaying of Akai Gurley, 28, gunned down in a dimly lit stairwell in the New York borough of Brooklyn, was the latest in a string of lethal police actions feeding U.S. public outrage over what many perceive as racially based violence by law enforcement.

This week's wave of angry but largely peaceful protests began Wednesday when a New York grand jury declined to bring charges against white officer Daniel Pantaleo in the chokehold death of Eric Garner, a black 43-year-old father of six.

Garner, who had no weapon, was being arrested on suspicion of selling cigarettes illegally. A videotape of his confrontation with police on Staten Island in July showed Pantaleo's arm across Garner's neck as he is subdued by four officers, then Garner was pinned face down to the pavement as he repeatedly gasps, "I can't breathe" - a phrase protesters have adopted as a rallying cry.

The decision sparing Pantaleo from prosecution was announced nine days after a Missouri grand jury chose not to indict a white policeman for the shooting death in August of an unarmed black teenager in the St. Louis suburb of Ferguson, spurring two nights of arson and unrest there.

Then on Thursday in Phoenix, Arizona, another unarmed black man was shot dead by a white police officer during a scuffle, leading to protests in that city.

"The government has created a monster and the monster is now loose," said Soraya Soi Free, 45, a nurse from the Bronx who has been protesting in New York.

MARCHERS INVADE APPLE STORE

After two nights that saw thousands of demonstrators pouring into the streets and blocking traffic in Manhattan, the turnout on Friday saw only hundreds as a cold, steady rain fell.

But in a surprising departure from previous nights, more than 100 people stormed into an Apple Store to stage a brief "die-in," sprawling on the floor as shoppers and employees watched. They left without incident after about five minutes.

Similar demonstrations were staged at Macy's flagship department store in Herald Square and at Grand Central Terminal, one of the city's two main rail stations. As they did at the Apple store, police stood by but allowed the protesters to briefly occupy both locations.

Some Manhattan retailers have curtailed their hours in response to the recent unrest, including Best Buy Co Inc and Target Corp.

Meanwhile, nearly 100 people, including local civic leaders, huddled under umbrellas near the site of Garner's death for a candlelight vigil on Staten Island.

"This is a movement, a rainbow of people," the Rev. Demetrius Carolina of the First Central Baptist Church told the racially mixed crowd.

A dwindling group of marchers who pressed on through the rain were confronted by police on Manhattan's lower East Side before midnight. Police arrested several protesters.

Among them were Chloe Dewberry, 22, who had shrugged off the chilling downpour.

"No one ever got anywhere by giving up when it got tough," she said. "I'm so enraged, I don't even notice."

Protests also unfolded in Chicago, Boston and Washington, D.C., where marchers echoed demonstrators across the country, chanting "Black lives matter," and "I can't breathe."

Renee Alexander, 44, a nurse from Woodbridge, Virginia, who joined about 200 protesters in downtown Washington, expressed outrage over the video images of Garner's death.

"It's heartbreaking for me to watch, over and over on TV, how his life was cut short on the street, just like a dog,” she said. "They had no respect for him. No human being should die in the street like that - choked to death.”

NEW CASE IN BROOKLYN

Brooklyn District Attorney Kenneth Thompson said on Friday he will convene a grand jury to consider charges against the New York City officer who shot Gurley. Police there have said the officer, Peter Liang, may have accidentally discharged his gun.

At a news conference with Gurley's relatives on Friday, Kevin Powell, the president of the advocacy group BK Nation, called the shooting part of a "series of modern-day lynchings."

Gurley's mother, Sylvia Palmer, tearfully demanded justice.

In Cleveland on Friday, the family of a 12-year-old boy fatally shot by police filed a lawsuit against the city, a day after the federal government found the police department systematically uses excessive force.

Elsewhere in the Midwest, activists on Friday concluded a 120-mile (190 km) protest march to the Missouri governor's mansion from Ferguson, where 18-year-old Michael Brown was shot to death in August by a policeman who initially stopped the teenager for walking in the street.

Some witnesses to the confrontation told a grand jury that Brown had raised his hands in the air before he was killed, though others contradicted that testimony.

More than 100 protesters shouted, "hands up, don't shoot" and other slogans as they rallied in the rotunda of the state capitol in Jefferson City.

Unlike the Aug. 9 slaying of Brown, Garner's encounter was captured on video. Pantaleo could still face disciplinary action from an internal police investigation, his lawyer said. Chokeholds are banned by police department regulations.

Pantaleo told the grand jury he used a proper takedown technique and denied putting pressure on Garner's neck, according to his lawyer, Stuart London. The city's medical examiner has said Garner's death was caused by compressing his neck and chest, with his asthma and obesity contributing.

Pantaleo has been accused by other blacks of violating their civil rights while he was on patrol. Court filings obtained by Reuters show that four African American men have sued Pantaleo over two separate 2012 incidents, claiming they were stopped, strip-searched and arrested without cause.

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder has said the Justice Department will pursue civil rights investigations into both the Missouri shooting and the New York case, though legal experts have said federal charges for the two officers are unlikely.

(Additional reporting by Frank McGurty, Joseph Ax, Ellen Wulfhorst, Scott Malone, Nandita Bose and Nathan Layne; Writing by Steve Gorman and Joseph Ax; Editing by Bernadette Baum, Grant McCool, Ken Wills & Kim Coghill)

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Mubarak verdict fuels protests, mockery in Egypt

By Amr Dalsh
CAIRO, Sun Nov 30, 2014 9:01am EST

1 of 3. Anti-Mubarak protesters shout slogans against government and military rules after the verdict of former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak's trial, around Abdel Moneim Riad square in downtown Cairo November 29, 2014.
Credit: Reuters/Amr Abdallah Dalsh
CAIRO, (Reuters) - Protests erupted at universities across Egypt on Sunday, condemning a court decision to drop criminal charges against Hosni Mubarak, the president whose ouster in the 2011 uprising raised hopes of a new era of political openness.
Hundreds of demonstrators gathered at Cairo University, waving pictures of Mubarak behind bars and demanding the "fall of the regime", the rallying cry of the Arab Spring uprisings that shook governments from Tunisia to the Gulf in 2011.
Police stood ready at the gates to bar students that sought to take their demonstration into the streets.
An Egyptian court on Saturday dropped its case against Mubarak over the killing of protesters in the 2011 uprising that ended his 30-year rule.
The ruling was seen by activists as the latest sign that the rights won during the revolt are being eroded.
Two people were killed and nine were wounded on Saturday evening, when security forces fired tear gas and birdshot to disperse about 1,000 protesters who attempted to enter Tahrir Square -- the symbolic heart of the revolt that ousted Mubarak.
Security forces closed a Cairo metro station, the state news agency said, an apparent effort to prevent gatherings downtown.
Clashes also erupted at Zagazig University in the Nile Delta, and the state-owned Al-Ahram newspaper said 11 students were detained after setting fire to a building.
Many Egyptians who lived through the rule of former air force officer Mubarak view it as a period of autocracy and crony capitalism.
His overthrow led to Egypt's first free election. But the winner, Mohamed Mursi, was ousted last year by Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, another military officer who won a presidential vote in May.
Egyptian authorities have since jailed Mursi and thousands of his Muslim Brotherhood supporters, sentencing hundreds to death in mass trials that drew international criticism.
By contrast, Mubarak-era figures have been released and new laws curtailing political freedoms have raised fears among activists that the old leadership is back.
"Down with Hosni Mubarak, down with every Mubarak, down with military rule" said one Facebook page that called for protests against the ruling.
The verdict has also prompted a deluge of online cartoons about the return of the old guard.
One animated video begins with a group of Mubarak-era politicians in a darkened cell facing an array of charges. One by one they are released and end up celebrating their freedom with their former president, singing "yes, we are back".
(Reporting by Amr Dalsh, Ali Abdelaty and Lin Noueihed; Editing by Rosalind Russell)

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Ivory Coast army protests sow fears of return to unrest

By Joe Bavier
ABIDJAN Sun Nov 30, 2014 3:44am EST

Ivory Coast's President Alassane Ouattara (R) salutes while walking next to Chief of Staff, General Soumaila Bakayoko during a parade to commemorate the country's 54th Independence Day, outside the presidential palace in Abidjan August 7, 2014.
Credit: Reuters/Luc Gnago
ABIDJAN (Reuters) - Protests by disgruntled soldiers in Ivory Coast have exposed the government's failure to reform its mutiny-plagued armed forces and its rapid capitulation sets a dangerous precedent in a country with bright economic prospects.
Ivory Coast - French-speaking West Africa's largest economy - is emerging from a decade of crisis that ended in a brief civil war in 2011. Its rapid revival and vast potential have made it the new darling of frontier investors in Africa.
When thousands of soldiers poured out of barracks and erected barricades in towns across the country this month, it was a stark reminder of the coups, mutinies and rebellions that have crippled the world's top cocoa grower.
President Alassane Ouattara has received credit for overseeing Ivory Coast's economic renaissance, but has struggled to reform an army thrown together from former government loyalists and ex-rebels.
"The army has always been the weak point and it really surprises me they didn't learn the lessons of the past," said Rinaldo Depagne, West Africa project director for International Crisis Group.
The protesters were former members of the New Forces rebels, who three years ago fought alongside U.N. and French troops to install Ouattara in power after incumbent President Laurent Gbagbo refused to accept his victory in 2010 elections.
Thousands were to receive army salaries from 2009 under a peace deal that eventually collapsed, but Gbagbo never paid them. And after Ouattara took over in 2011, authorities brushed off their repeated demands for back pay and benefits until Nov. 18, when the soldiers hit the street.
"Their message was heard. The President of the Republic has understood it," Interior Minister Hamed Bakayoko said on the evening news broadcast just hours later, promising talks and pledging that the protesters would not be punished.
The next day, with the government forced to the negotiating table, it was the low-ranking, angry ex-rebels who were clearly in charge, forcing a delegation of top ministers to capitulate.
WHO'S NEXT?
While government initially estimated the cost of settling the dispute at around 20 billion CFA francs ($38 million), diplomats put the final figure at around $75 million.
Though a drain on public finances, most analysts and observers concede that Ouattara's weak position left him little choice but to pay up. The greater worry, they say, is what might follow, since many other former rebels have their own demands.
"Since the mutiny, the ambiance in the camp has changed," said one soldier involved in the protests. "We've split into groups. Some are with the chiefs, some are with us. We talk among ourselves. We don't mix anymore."
The past two decades have seen the Ivorian military morph into an unruly beast as successive leaders added new layers of recruits in a misguided attempt to ensure loyalty.
President Henri Konan Bedie favored his own Baoule ethnic group but neglected to pay other soldiers, setting the stage for the army coup that forced him from power on Christmas Eve 1999.
Gbagbo, from the southwest, stacked the security forces with fellow westerners after his election in 2000 but nearly fell to a mutiny by marginalized northern soldiers two years later.
That uprising split the country in half for eight years during which the New Forces rebels recruited thousands of new fighters. Following the rebel victory in 2011, these poorly trained troops also joined the army.
However, they still answer to their powerful rebel commanders, known as 'comzones', who now hold top army posts and have their own competing loyalties to Ouattara, Bakayoko or former rebel leader turned parliament speaker Guillaume Soro.
"The problem is that you have many, many chains of command within the army and nobody's really controlling it from the civilian side," Depagne said.
Ouattara has sought to rein in the chaos with a plan to disarm and demobilize some 74,000 ex-combatants by June.
Critics claim the program has recuperated few weapons and ignored thousands of fighters never formally registered by the New Forces but who remain armed. This group, alongside demobilized ex-fighters, made up a significant part of last week's protesters.
But their demands, which ranged from calls for integration in the army to payment of large bonuses for fighting Gbagbo, were not discussed in the talks. These fighters are blamed for a spike in armed highway attacks and violent crime in parts of the commercial capital Abidjan.
"They are the most dangerous element out there because they are armed, they are quasi-organized and they have a command structure through the old comzones," one western diplomat said.
To ensure stability in the short term, Ouattara, who is seeking reelection next year, must live up to the pledges he made to the protesters last week. The long-term damage caused by the brief uprising will be harder to repair.
"Who's going to come out next?" the diplomat said. "They're opening Pandora's Box. Everybody's got a grievance. Everybody's got something they think they're owed."
(Additional reporting by Ange Aboa; Editing by Daniel Flynn)

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Three dead in attack and Islamist protests in Egypt

CAIRO Fri Nov 28, 2014 7:00pm EST

1 of 13. Army soldiers take their positions with their armoured personnel vehicle during clashes with supporters of Muslim Brotherhood and ousted Egyptian President Mohamed Mursi in the Cairo suburb of Matariya November 28, 2014.
Credit: Reuters/Mohamed Abd El Ghany
CAIRO (Reuters) - Three people including an army general were killed and at least 28 wounded on Friday in militant attacks, some claimed by a group loyal to Islamic State, and clashes at Islamist protests around Egypt, security sources and health officials said.
Police were out in force at the demonstrations, organized by a hardline Salafi group calling for removal of the government of President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, the ex-army chief who led the overthrow of elected Islamist president Mohamed Mursi in July 2013.
In Matariya, focal point for protests in Cairo, a civilian died before the gathering was dispersed, security sources said.
Hours before, an army brigadier general was killed and two soldiers wounded when gunmen in an unmarked car fired on a parking lot in nearby Gesr al-Suez, they said. One soldier later died.
The demonstrations were small. Reuters witnesses saw just 100 or 200 people in Matariya.
The Interior Ministry said it thwarted 10 planned bombings and arrested 224 people nationwide on Friday.
One officer was shot in Alexandria and a bomb injured four police in the Nile Delta town of Sharqiya. In Al-Arish, in largely lawless northern Sinai province, a bomb wounded six policemen, security sources said.
Violence also erupted in Beni Soueif, a southern town, and Kafr Sheikh in the Delta, they said.
Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis, Egypt's most active militant group, appeared to take responsibility for some attacks via what claims to be its official Twitter account.
Ansar has pledged loyalty to Islamic State, the ultra-hardline Sunni militants that captured territory in Iraq and Syria, and claimed responsibility for shooting the general, the Sinai bomb and another attack in Qalyubiyah province.
Reuters could not confirm the group's claims.
Since Mursi's ouster, Egypt has cracked down on his Muslim Brotherhood supporters, arresting thousands and sentencing hundreds to death in trials that drew international criticism.
Hundreds of Brotherhood supporters were killed in August 2013 when security forces cleared two protest camps in one of the bloodiest days in Egypt's modern history.
That crackdown and laws banning unsanctioned protests have dampened enthusiasm for the kind of mass rallies that helped remove President Hosni Mubarak in 2011 and Mursi last year.
Authorities have tried to curb radical preaching, replacing thousands of imams and controlling Friday sermons.
The Salafi Front designated Friday's protests the "Uprising of Islamist Youth", alienating secular critics of Sisi and limiting turnout.
(Reporting by Shadi Bushra, Mostafa Hashem and Lin Noueihed; Editing by Andrew Roche and Gunna Dickson)

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U.S. Black Friday shopping marked by thinner crowds, protests

By Nandita Bose and Nathan Layne
WEST HARTFORD, Conn./CHICAGO Fri Nov 28, 2014 6:14pm EST

1 of 15. A Walmart employee helps a customer with a 50' TV on sale for $218 on Black Friday in Broomfield, Colorado November 28, 2014.
Credit: Reuters/Rick Wilking
WEST HARTFORD, Conn./CHICAGO (Reuters) - Mall crowds were relatively thin on Black Friday in a sign of what has become the new normal in U.S. holiday shopping: the mad rush is happening the night of Thanksgiving and more consumers are picking up deals online.
Across the United States, shoppers were greeted by protesters at hundreds of stores - some calling for higher wages at Wal-Mart Stores Inc (WMT.N), others protesting the decision of a grand jury not to indict a white police officer in the August shooting of an 18-year-old unarmed black man in Ferguson, Missouri.
Most major retailers now open Thursday evening and are extending holiday deals rather than limiting them to one day. The result is a quieter experience on a day that has traditionally kicked off the holiday shopping season, and often drawn chaotic crowds.
Black Friday has ranked as the busiest U.S. shopping day in terms of sales and traffic since 2005, according to ShopperTrak. But as demand shifts to Thursday and even earlier in the month, the research firm predicts that "Super Saturday" on Dec. 20 will be the most active day this year.
"It just looks like any other weekend," said Angela Olivera, a 32-year-old housewife shopping for children's clothing at the Westfarms Mall near Hartford, Connecticut. "The kind of crowds we usually see are missing and this is one of the biggest malls here. I think people are just not spending a lot."
The crowds normally reserved for Black Friday morning appeared on Thursday night. For instance, more than 15,000 people lined up for the opening of the flagship store of Macy's Inc (M.N) in New York on Thursday. Retailers also said they were capturing more of the holiday budget online.
Shares of Macy's, Wal-Mart and Target Corp (TGT.N) closed from 2 to 3 percent higher on Friday as investors were encouraged by the long lines on Thursday night and executives made bullish comments about demand. Lower gasoline prices also helped boost the shares, analysts said.
"It's off to a good start," said Charlie O'Shea, a retail analyst at Moody's Investors Service, about the shopping season after visiting nearly two dozen stores in northern New Jersey over the past two days.
In downtown Chicago, police arrested 11 people associated with workers' rights group OUR Walmart for blocking traffic in front of a Walmart store. The protest was one of 1,600 planned across the United States by the group, which is pushing for higher wages and benefits for the retailer's employees.
"Wal-Mart, Wal-Mart you're no good. Treat your workers like you should," a crowd of several dozen shouted outside the store.
Wal-Mart spokeswoman Brooke Buchanan said: "The crowds are mostly made up of paid union demonstrators, and they do not represent the views of the 1.3 million associates" who work for the company, the largest private employer in the United States.
Buchanan also said one of the demonstrators hit a customer at the Chicago store, prompting a complaint to the police.
OUR Walmart representative Georges Tounou said the group carried out its protest peacefully.
Overall Black Friday online sales as of 1500 EST (2000 GMT) were up 8 percent from a year earlier, according to IBM Digital Analytics Benchmark. Online sales were up 14.3 percent on Thanksgiving Day.
Wal-Mart said Thursday was its second-highest online sales day ever after last year's Cyber Monday, which is the Monday after Thanksgiving, when online retailers promote bargains.
Target CEO Brian Cornell said his company rang up a record day of online sales on Thursday, and was seeing brisk demand in its stores. He said the company was selling 1,800 televisions a minute between 6 p.m. and 8 p.m. on Thursday night.
Heavy traffic caused the Best Buy Co Inc (BBY.N) website to crash for a little over an hour earlier on Friday, but as of afternoon it was back up and running, a company spokesman said.
The National Retail Federation is projecting that sales for November and December will rise 4.1 percent to $616.9 billion, which would mark the most bountiful holiday season in three years. Holiday sales grew 3.1 percent in 2013.
Some shoppers said the price of gasoline - expected to go even lower after the price of crude oil fell to a multi-year low - could make them more inclined to spend.
"My budget is pretty tight this year and gas is a tremendous expense because I have to drive my daughter around a lot," Kristen Akeley, 46, who works at an elementary school, said while shopping for clothes at a Target in Connecticut.
"My gas expense has fallen from $150 a week to $80 a week and that is big savings at this time of the year."
(Additional reporting by Beth Pinsker in Ventnor, New Jersey; Editing by Jilian Mincer, Paul Simao and Matthew Lewis)

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St. Louis-area mall closes on Black Friday as Ferguson protests spread

AppId is over the quota
By Daniel Wallis and Edward McAllister
FERGUSON, Mo. Fri Nov 28, 2014 6:57pm EST

1 of 2. A protester holds a sign outside a burning Walgreens drug store after a grand jury returned no indictment in the shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, November 24, 2014.
Credit: Reuters/Adrees Latif
FERGUSON, Mo. (Reuters) - Demonstrators shut down a shopping mall near Ferguson, Missouri, at the start of the holiday shopping season on Friday as protests over the killing of an unarmed black teen by a white police officer turned against some retailers around the country.
After a mostly quiet Thanksgiving Day, protesters were out in force again on Friday to decry Monday's decision by a grand jury not to indict Officer Darren Wilson in the Aug. 9 shooting death of 18-year-old Michael Brown in the St. Louis suburb.
At locations around the country, protesters said they were encouraging a boycott of Black Friday to highlight the purchasing power of black Americans and to draw links between economic inequality and racial inequality.
"Voicing your opinion is not enough," said Sergio Uzurin, a protester in front of Macy's flagship store in New York. "You have to disrupt business as usual for this to happen and that's the only thing that's ever made change. It's the real way democracies function."
The Ferguson shooting, which has renewed a debate over race relations in the United States and the treatment of blacks and other minorities by police, has triggered months of sometimes violent protests in Ferguson and sympathy protests elsewhere.
On Friday, more than 200 people in New York sought to disrupt shopping with a protest in front of the Macy's store in Herald Square and marched into the ground floor as staff and shoppers looked on in apparent surprise.
Similar protests were also staged in other cities including Chicago, Los Angeles and Oakland, California, on Black Friday, when many retailers offer deep discounts and shoppers traditionally turn out in droves.
At the Galleria near St. Louis, demonstrators chanted "No Black Friday" before briefly lying down on the second floor, leading officials to effectively shut down the mall for the rest of the day. Security guards stopped anyone from entering the shopping center, telling disappointed bargain-hunters that it was closed for the rest of the day.
Eddie Cox, the 23-year-old assistant manager of a Lids baseball cap store, said he watched with pride as the demonstrators marched past his shop.
Cox, who is black, said his store was seeing only about a fifth as many Black Friday sales as last year due to the call by activists for a boycott.
"The business side of me kinda hates it, but at the same time, the young, activist, pro-conscious part of me loves every bit of this," Cox said. "It's a really cool time to be young, black and American."
Ferguson itself was peaceful for a second day in a row, after more than 100 arrests earlier in the week, when some demonstrators reacted to the grand jury's decision by looting or burning businesses, and officers in riot gear used tear gas to disperse crowds.
On Friday, police briefly reopened West Florissant Avenue, a main thoroughfare where many of the damaged or destroyed businesses are located. That allowed clean-up efforts to begin there and gave residents a glimpse of more burned-out stores including a clothing store and an Enterprise car rental outlet. By nightfall, the strip was closed again.
Near police headquarters, the scene of the worst violence earlier in the week, residents painted murals on the boarded-up windows of stores. Burned-out cars at one car dealership on West Florissant were loaded onto the back of flatbed trucks.
'ANY RESOURCES POSSIBLE'
In the neighboring town of Dellwood, the mayor held a news conference in which he called for state and federal aid for his city, where 13 businesses were burned on Monday and five were looted.
"I am asking that Dellwood not be forgotten," Mayor Reggie Jones said. "I am asking for any resources possible to help us rebuild."
About 16 people were arrested after chaining themselves to a train during a demonstration at a Bay Area Rapid Transit rail station in Oakland over the Missouri grand jury’s decision, a BART spokeswoman said.
In the U.S. capital, striking Wal-Mart employees dominated a Black Friday protest at Washington’s Union Station, said a spokeswoman for the organizer, OUR Walmart.
A Walmart store near Ferguson decided to cancel Black Friday sales, and merchandise was moved to other locations in the St. Louis area, employees said.
(Additional reporting by Emily Flitter in Ferguson, Alex Dobuzinskis in Los Angeles, and Barbara Goldberg in New York; Writing by Frank McGurty; Editing by Will Dunham)

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U.S. Black Friday shopping marked by thinner crowds, protests

AppId is over the quota
By Nandita Bose and Nathan Layne
WEST HARTFORD, Conn./CHICAGO Fri Nov 28, 2014 6:14pm EST

1 of 15. A Walmart employee helps a customer with a 50' TV on sale for $218 on Black Friday in Broomfield, Colorado November 28, 2014.
Credit: Reuters/Rick Wilking
WEST HARTFORD, Conn./CHICAGO (Reuters) - Mall crowds were relatively thin on Black Friday in a sign of what has become the new normal in U.S. holiday shopping: the mad rush is happening the night of Thanksgiving and more consumers are picking up deals online.
Across the United States, shoppers were greeted by protesters at hundreds of stores - some calling for higher wages at Wal-Mart Stores Inc (WMT.N), others protesting the decision of a grand jury not to indict a white police officer in the August shooting of an 18-year-old unarmed black man in Ferguson, Missouri.
Most major retailers now open Thursday evening and are extending holiday deals rather than limiting them to one day. The result is a quieter experience on a day that has traditionally kicked off the holiday shopping season, and often drawn chaotic crowds.
Black Friday has ranked as the busiest U.S. shopping day in terms of sales and traffic since 2005, according to ShopperTrak. But as demand shifts to Thursday and even earlier in the month, the research firm predicts that "Super Saturday" on Dec. 20 will be the most active day this year.
"It just looks like any other weekend," said Angela Olivera, a 32-year-old housewife shopping for children's clothing at the Westfarms Mall near Hartford, Connecticut. "The kind of crowds we usually see are missing and this is one of the biggest malls here. I think people are just not spending a lot."
The crowds normally reserved for Black Friday morning appeared on Thursday night. For instance, more than 15,000 people lined up for the opening of the flagship store of Macy's Inc (M.N) in New York on Thursday. Retailers also said they were capturing more of the holiday budget online.
Shares of Macy's, Wal-Mart and Target Corp (TGT.N) closed from 2 to 3 percent higher on Friday as investors were encouraged by the long lines on Thursday night and executives made bullish comments about demand. Lower gasoline prices also helped boost the shares, analysts said.
"It's off to a good start," said Charlie O'Shea, a retail analyst at Moody's Investors Service, about the shopping season after visiting nearly two dozen stores in northern New Jersey over the past two days.
In downtown Chicago, police arrested 11 people associated with workers' rights group OUR Walmart for blocking traffic in front of a Walmart store. The protest was one of 1,600 planned across the United States by the group, which is pushing for higher wages and benefits for the retailer's employees.
"Wal-Mart, Wal-Mart you're no good. Treat your workers like you should," a crowd of several dozen shouted outside the store.
Wal-Mart spokeswoman Brooke Buchanan said: "The crowds are mostly made up of paid union demonstrators, and they do not represent the views of the 1.3 million associates" who work for the company, the largest private employer in the United States.
Buchanan also said one of the demonstrators hit a customer at the Chicago store, prompting a complaint to the police.
OUR Walmart representative Georges Tounou said the group carried out its protest peacefully.
Overall Black Friday online sales as of 1500 EST (2000 GMT) were up 8 percent from a year earlier, according to IBM Digital Analytics Benchmark. Online sales were up 14.3 percent on Thanksgiving Day.
Wal-Mart said Thursday was its second-highest online sales day ever after last year's Cyber Monday, which is the Monday after Thanksgiving, when online retailers promote bargains.
Target CEO Brian Cornell said his company rang up a record day of online sales on Thursday, and was seeing brisk demand in its stores. He said the company was selling 1,800 televisions a minute between 6 p.m. and 8 p.m. on Thursday night.
Heavy traffic caused the Best Buy Co Inc (BBY.N) website to crash for a little over an hour earlier on Friday, but as of afternoon it was back up and running, a company spokesman said.
The National Retail Federation is projecting that sales for November and December will rise 4.1 percent to $616.9 billion, which would mark the most bountiful holiday season in three years. Holiday sales grew 3.1 percent in 2013.
Some shoppers said the price of gasoline - expected to go even lower after the price of crude oil fell to a multi-year low - could make them more inclined to spend.
"My budget is pretty tight this year and gas is a tremendous expense because I have to drive my daughter around a lot," Kristen Akeley, 46, who works at an elementary school, said while shopping for clothes at a Target in Connecticut.
"My gas expense has fallen from $150 a week to $80 a week and that is big savings at this time of the year."
(Additional reporting by Beth Pinsker in Ventnor, New Jersey; Editing by Jilian Mincer, Paul Simao and Matthew Lewis)

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