Store security assaulted by unruley crowd www.privateofficer.com

Milwaukee Wi. Dec. 4, 2007
A 22-year-old Milwaukee man was charged Friday with misdemeanor battery in connection with a melee last weekend in a Wauwatosa Kmart store where dozens of people had gathered after word spread that the store was offering instant credit, and lots of it, to anyone who applied.
Quincy Echols is accused of assaulting a Kmart security officer, who suffered cuts and a broken nose when he was thrown into a glass jewelry case in the store. The officer was injured trying to keep a fight between two women, at least one of whom had come in search of a credit card, from spilling farther into the store, according to a police report.Police were called to the store at 3201 N. Mayfair Road last Saturday on a report that a crowd of shoppers there for the credit card offer had become unruly. Two store managers told police that a glitch in the computer system that approves credit card applications for Kmart's parent company, Sears, was causing it to approve cards for everyone who applied and offering lines of credit of $850 to $4,000.Witnesses said word began circulating as early as Nov. 23 that the store was approving all comers because of a computer problem. At least one woman said she was encouraged by an employee to bring her application to the Wauwatosa store, regardless of where she picked it up, because it would be approved. At one point, she said, customers were hawking the applications in the parking lot for $10 because the store had run out.Illinois-based Sears Holdings Corp. said the problem was isolated to the Wauwatosa store.A spokesman for Citigroup, the New York-based company that issues Sears credit cards, said the underwriting system that supports the Wauwatosa Kmart store temporarily lost connectivity on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving and was restored at some point after last Saturday. He said a backup was in place and no applications were erroneously approved.