Viral video shows fight inside Indianapolis Walmart

INDIANAPOLIS — Video of a fight inside a north side Indianapolis Walmart is going viral.

What should have been a normal shopping day for residents turned into an all-out brawl.

“I was standing in the checkout line and that’s kind of where everything started to unfold,” Kind Butler, who witnessed the incident, told WRTV.

Once it started, he immediately picked up his phone and started recording.

The clip runs for more than four minutes and starts with the employee surrounded by a group of women, who are all kicking, punching and beating her.

“There was a lot of commotion at first,” Butler explained. “But once I saw that it was almost like a family feud type of situation, two girls, I calmed down, and that’s when I was able to bring out my camera and record the whole thing.”

Butler told WRTV the altercation was the result of an alleged sexual assault. He said the Walmart employee was confronted by the group of people who believed she knew where that person was.

In the video, you see several people watching the incident unfold, as well as recording it.

“When we’re in a situation like that, we feel so uncomfortable, we don’t know what to do,” Amanda Egan said. “‘All of a sudden I don’t know what’s expected, and so our phones are one of those devices that we especially reach for.”

Egan is an Associate Professor of Psychology and Chair of the Department of Psychological Science & Counseling at Marian University. WRTV asked her why the first reaction from many people is to record rather than to help.

“In that situation where they see several individuals all ganging up on one person, they [bystanders] may decide that’s gonna be way too costly for me and I’m not even gonna be able to effectively help,” Egan explained. “But that’s going to create cognitive dissonance in our brain because we want to believe that we’re helpful people… so by pulling out and filming with the device, it feels as if we’re doing something.”

Read more from WRTV here