Black Friday brawls most likely in Arkansas and Tennessee, analysis suggests

WASHINGTON, Nov. 25 (UPI) -- A home-buying website said its research indicates Black Friday brawls are most likely to break out in Arkansas, Tennessee, Alabama and Louisiana.

Website Estately said it ranked each state 1-50 in two categories -- Facebook posts expressing an interest in Black Friday sales and frequency of aggravated assaults -- and averaged them to determine the states where day-after-Thanksgiving shopping is the most likely to devolve into fisticuffs.

Estately said Facebook users in California and Hawaii expressed the least interest in Black Friday shopping, with less than 2-percent of sampled residents mentioning the unofficial shopping holiday. The most interest was found in West Virginia and Kentucky, where 10 percent of sampled Facebook users expressed their desire to take advantage of sales.

The site said it took aggravated assault data from the FBI Uniform Crime Reports for 2014, which indicated Tennessee had the highest rate of assaults, 453.2 incidents per 100,000 people. Maine had the lowest rate, with 66.9 assaults per 100,000 residents.

The 10 states highlighted by Estately as having the greatest likelihood of Black Friday violence were:

1. Arkansas

2. Tennessee

3. Alabama

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4. Louisiana

5. Missouri

6. West Virginia

7. Oklahoma

8. Indiana

9. Kansas

10. South Carolina

The safest states for Black Friday shopping were identified as Massachusetts, Hawaii, New Jersey, Oregon and Vermont.