Fair Oaks Mall Calls Cops to Handle Air Jordan Fans

Air Jordans caused a stir at Fair Oaks Mall Friday morning with shoppers rushing to grab a pair of the highly sought shoes. Fairfax County police came over to help keep the mob in check.

Why the chaos? Stores released the latest version of Air Jordans, Nike's Air Jordan XI Concord ($180 plus). Shoe fanatics drool over the Concord, which is identical to the much-loved 1996 version. NBA star Michael Jordan wore these shoes in the 1995-96 season, when he won most valuable player.

"We had more people than other Jordan releases," said Robbie Stark, Fair Oaks Mall general manager. "This was the biggest crowd. There was easily more than 100 people here."

Fair Oaks Mall had three stores opening at around 7 a.m. with limited Concords to sell. The plan was to have all three stores open at once, get the bulk of the crowd in and out with their shoes before the rest of the mall opened at 8 a.m.

But not everything went according to plan.

"Champs Sports and Footlocker opened at the same time and everything went fine, the crowd went in and out," said Stark. "But Finish Line was behind, so everyone who didn't get [Air Jordans] rushed down there."

The mall called the for help managing the throng of shoppers gathered at Finish Line.

Other than the mass of frantic shoe-shoppers outside Finish Line, there were no incidents. No one was injured.

Similar incidents plagued Virginia and Maryland malls this morning. WUSA9 reports crowds at Potomac Mills, Manassas and Montgomery malls.  says the rumor that a Concords delivery truck had been robbed at Wheaton Mall are untrue.