What is it about Walmart stores and Black Friday?

Reports of injuries, fights and at least one shooting came in from across the country this year, with one California customer even fending off other shoppers with pepper spray. The incidents were a grim reminder of the 2008 Black Friday stampede at a Long Island, N.Y., Walmart that left one employee dead and a pregnant woman hospitalized.

Wal-Mart Stores spokesman Greg Rossiter said he doesn’t believe Black Friday shopping violence is a singularly Walmart phenomenon, although he declined to elaborate on the record. Nor did he want to hazard opinions on the effect the current economy might be having on shoppers — or on the type of shopper the company’s stores might be attracting.

“It’s been a very safe event at thousands of Walmart stores,” Rossiter said. These were “a few unfortunate incidents.”

Among those incidents:

• Police in a Phoenix suburb were under fire Friday after an online video showed a grandfather on the floor of a Walmart with a bloody face after officers said he was subdued trying to shoplift during a chaotic rush for discounted video games. The man’s wife and other witnesses said he was only trying to help his grandson after the boy was trampled by shoppers, and that he put a video game in his waistband to free his hands.

• In Myrtle Beach, S.C., a man and a woman were injured as they were leaving a Walmart about 1 a.m. Friday. Assailants hit the man in the head and shot the woman in the leg, CNN reported, but fled when another shopper also pulled a gun.

• In Kissimmee, Fla., one man was arrested after a fight at a Walmart jewelry counter, police said.

• In Rome, N.Y., a fight soon after midnight reportedly landed two people in the hospital with minor injuries.

• And in San Leandro, Calif., members of a family trying to take their purchases home about 1:45 a.m. were accosted by three or four assailants, authorities said. One family member was shot after refusing to hand over the goods. Others wrestled one suspect to the ground; the other suspects fled. The pinned suspect was arrested, and the shooting victim was listed in critical but stable condition Friday.

The violence pales in comparison, though, to the 2008 Long Island incident in which “a throng of shoppers physically broke down the doors” of a Walmart, knocking to the ground and trampling a 34-year-old temporary employee, according to Nassau County officials.

The employee died of his injuries, and a Wal-Mart Stores statement at the time called the situation tragic.

Not nearly as tragic, but certainly headline-grabbing, was the pepper-spray incident late Thursday at a Walmart store in Los Angeles’ San Fernando Valley. A woman trying to get her hands on merchandise used pepper spray to scatter the competition, authorities said.

Ten customers were slightly injured by the pepper spray, and 10 others suffered minor bumps and bruises in the chaos, police Sgt. Jose Valle said. They were treated at the scene.

“This was customer-versus-customer ‘shopping rage,’ ” Los Angeles police Lt. Abel Parga said.

The woman used the spray in more than one area of the store “to gain preferred access to a variety of locations in the store,” Los Angeles Fire Capt. James Carson said. “She was competitive shopping.”

The tactic worked, apparently. The woman reportedly made her purchases, exited the store and has not been identified.

“We’re glad everyone seems to be OK,” said Wal-Mart spokesman Rossiter, adding the company is cooperating with law-enforcement authorities and providing surveillance video in an attempt to identify the woman.

Matthew Lopez, caught in the pepper-spray attack, said customers already were in the store when a whistle signaled the start of the Black Friday sale at 10 p.m., sending shoppers hurtling in search of deeply discounted items.

By the time he arrived at the video games, the 18-year-old said, the display had been torn down. Employees attempted to hold back the scrum of shoppers and pick up merchandise even as customers trampled video games and DVDs strewn on the floor.

“It was absolutely crazy,” he said.

Another customer said screams erupted after about 100 people waiting in line to snag Xbox gaming consoles and Wii video games engaged in a shoving match.

Alejandra Seminario, 24, said she was waiting in line for toys at the store about 9:55 p.m. when people in a nearby aisle started shouting and ripping at the plastic wrap encasing gaming consoles. The display was supposed to be opened at 10 p.m.

“People started screaming, pulling and pushing each other, and then the whole area filled up with pepper spray,” Seminario said. “I guess what triggered it was people started pulling the plastic off the pallets and then shoving and bombarding the display of games. It started with people pushing and screaming because they were getting shoved onto the boxes.”

Pepper spray wafted through the air, Seminario said, and she started coughing. Her face also started itching.

“I did not want to get involved. I was too scared,” she said. “I just stayed in the toy aisle.”

By the time she and her husband, Cesar Seminario, 27, reached the cash register 20 minutes later with a Wii gaming console and Barbie dolls, the air still smelled of pepper spray, she said.

Joseph Poulose, who said he was hit with the spray near the DVD and video-games display, criticized the store for failing to control the crowds.

“There were way too many people in a building that size. Every aisle was full,” he said. Customers were stomping on photo frames and other items on the floor, said Poulose, who tried to protect his pregnant wife from the throng of shoppers.

“It was definitely the worst Black Friday I’ve ever experienced,” he said.