A videotaped fight between two women at a Beech Grove, Indiana, Walmart spun out of control on Thursday when a 6-year-old boy joined the brawl in the store's shampoo aisle.
In cell phone videos uploaded Friday to YouTube, two women are heard arguing in the store before punching and wrestling each other to the ground. A young boy is then seen joining the fight, punching, kicking, and hitting one of the women over the head with a bottle of shampoo in front of stunned shoppers.
Police said an argument started between one of the women and a Walmart employee over shopping carts when a second woman got involved and "it escalated into a fist fight," WTHR-TV reported.
"Johnny, punch her in her fucking face!" one of the women is heard yelling to the child standing over the two struggling on the ground.
As the fight continues unabated, a bystander raises her voice and tells the boy to stop kicking the pinned woman or he'll be forced to "go to little-boy jail."
"You can't tell me to stop!" the boy replies, charging at the group of onlookers. "Do not even tell me what to do!" Other shoppers can be heard debating whether to get involved but ultimately decide not to.
"I don't think you can touch them, though, because you will be involved in a lawsuit, the way shit is these days," one woman says off camera.
The fight goes on for several minutes and store security officers are not seen.
A Walmart spokesperson, Aaron Mullins, told The Blaze that store management responded to the fight by calling police.
"I believe police showed up about eight minutes after," Mullins said.
Walmart policy prohibits security from interfering with physical confrontations, the spokesperson said, adding that store employees were stationed near the fight to "monitor and make sure customers were safe."
Officials are considering filing charges against the two women and may involve the state's Department of Child Services in their investigation, police told WXIN-TV.
"It was an avoidable fight between two females that should've known better, in front of a six-year-old boy," Beech Grove Police Maj. Tom Hurrle said.
Walmart and Beech Grove police did not immediately respond to BuzzFeed News' requests for comment.
One of the women involved in the fight, identified as Amber Stephenson, told an Indianapolis radio station Tuesday the confrontation started over a racist comment made by the other woman to a Walmart employee.
“[The woman] was sitting there yelling at an employee at Walmart, and she was telling her that she was a [expletive] and that she was going to get out of the chair and whoop her [expletive],” Stephenson told the Smiley Morning Show on WZPL-FM.
“So in my defense, I was standing up for the employee,” Stephenson added.
She also defended her young son's role in the fight, describing him as a straight-A, honor roll student at a private Christian school.
"My son takes martial arts classes," she said. "He’s been going to the gym for several years with his father. I mean, he’s been in the gym for a long time. He got a little crazy. I mean, he's a little crazy kid. I don’t ever have to worry about him being bullied in high school."
Beech Grove Mayor Dennis Buckley called the incident, which had racked up more than 2.5 million views on YouTube by Tuesday night, "embarrassing."
“I think it’s disgusting," he told WXIN-TV. "And it sure sheds a poor light on Walmart and I’m pretty disappointed in them."
Both women involved in the fight have been banned from the Walmart store, a company spokesman told the station. Police are continuing to investigate the fight and may recommend the county prosecutor's office bring charges.
