With the holiday season fast approaching, DeKalb residents braved the cold and darkness to get a jump on their shopping lists during Black Friday sales.

While Black Friday is always a safety concern for population centers, DeKalb Sgt. James McDougall said the city handled the event well.

McDougall said that besides one minor non-violent incident at Walmart, 2300 Sycamore Road, the sales did not cause any upset in the local community.

The police did not have to increase the number of officers on patrol, and only had one off-duty security job at Best Buy, 2074 Sycamore Road, McDougall said.

“There’s no need for extra police on Black Friday in DeKalb,” McDougall said. “People are just well-behaved in our city.”

Meanwhile, nationwide sales dropped 1.8 percent to $11.2 billion during Friday’s sales, according to ShopperTrak, which collects information on foot traffic in stores.

Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., reported this year’s Black Friday sales were the most successful on record, according to a Friday news release. Walmart CEO Bill Simon said in the release that he was impressed by the number of customers served, which was about 22 million people on Thursday.

According to the release, Walmart processed nearly 10 million register transactions during the sales and averaged almost 5,000 items per second nationwide Thursday night.