In a sign of consumer desperation amid a bleak economy, the annual rite of retailing known as Black Friday turned chaotic and deadly.

A Wal-Mart worker on Long Island died after being trampled by customers who broke through the doors early Friday. And fights and injuries occurred around the country at some other stores operated by Wal-Mart, the nation’s leading discount chain and one of the few retailers thriving in the current economy.

Despite those outbreaks, many other retailers appeared to have fewer customers than usual for the day after Thanksgiving, which is typically one of the busiest shopping days of the year. Merchants call it Black Friday because in the past, that was when many retailers went into the black, or turned profitable, for the year. Many opened their stores earlier this year and offered the biggest discounts in their history.

Retailers said the lines outside their stores were as long as last year’s, but analysts disagreed. They said it was too early to tell how retailers would fare this weekend, though they were hearing rumblings of sales declines. That may be the case not only because of the economy, but also because of countless deep discounts to be found on the Web. The days of malls clogged with people on Black Friday are fast disappearing.

“The wall-to-wall,” Marshal Cohen, chief industry analyst for NPD Group, said, “has become an area rug.”

Even many die-hard Black Friday shoppers – the ones who camp out on sidewalks overnight to be first through the doors – said they were cutting back.

It was mainly discount chains, which had been expected to hold up a bit better than other types of stores, that were bustling long before sunrise. People showed up for a small number of limited-time “door-buster” deals, like 32-inch flat-screen televisions for $388 and Intel laptops for $499. And in many cases, after an initial onslaught, crowds dwindled after the few sought-after items had sold out.

While tussles, and even broken bones, are common when the doors open on Black Friday, this is apparently the first time someone has been killed.

Nassau County police said about 2,000 people were gathered outside the Wal-Mart at the mall about 20 miles east of Manhattan. The impatient crowd knocked the man, identified by police as Jdimytai Damour of Queens, to the ground as he opened the doors, leaving a metal portion of the frame crumpled like an accordion.

Dozens of store employees trying to fight their way out to help Damour were also getting trampled by the crowd, said Nassau police spokesman Lt. Michael Fleming.

Shoppers stepped over the man on the ground and streamed into the store. Customers shouted angrily and kept shopping when store officials said they were closing because of the death, police and witnesses said.

Kimberly Cribbs, who witnessed the stampede, said shoppers were acting like “savages.”

“When they were saying they had to leave, that an employee got killed, people were yelling ‘I’ve been on line since yesterday morning,’” she said. “They kept shopping.”

“This crowd was out of control,” Fleming said. He described the scene as “utter chaos.”

Damour, 34, was taken to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead about 6 a.m., police said. The exact cause of death has not been determined. At least four other people, including a woman who was eight months pregnant, were taken to hospitals for observation or minor injuries.

Items on sale at the store included a Samsung 50-inch Plasma HDTV for $798, a Bissel Compact Upright Vacuum for $28, a Samsung 10.2 megapixel digital camera for $69 and DVDs such as “The Incredible Hulk” for $9.

Police said criminal charges were possible in the case, but Fleming said it would be difficult to identify individual shoppers. Authorities were reviewing surveillance video.

At a Toys R Us store in Palm Desert, Calif., two men were shot to death in a dispute, but local officials said the cause was unclear. And the company released a statement saying the deaths were not related to Black Friday shopping.

Certainly Wal-Mart was not the only retailer with aggressive shoppers. But unlike Best Buy, for instance, it did not give out tickets for the items on customers’ wish lists. Before Best Buy opened its doors at 5 a.m., shoppers lined up outside to receive tickets for merchandise they intended to buy, reducing the need to elbow one another to pick up computers and GPS units.

Chuck O’Donnell, district services manager for Best Buy stores in New Jersey, said the lines “went all the way around the building, just like in years past.” Stores were crowded, he said, “but manageable.”

Wal-Mart, which determines on a store-by-store basis how many private security guards or police officers it needs on any given day, said that the safety of its customers and workers was its “top priority” and that the company’s “thoughts and prayers go out to the families of those impacted.”

Walter Loeb, president of retail consultancy Loeb Associates, said there was shopping mania at Wal-Mart every year. But this year, he said, it seems “people are becoming irrational in their actions.”

At a Wal-Mart in Niles, Ill., a woman fought back tears when she discovered someone had taken her shopping cart filled with toys.

In Columbus, Ohio, Nikki Nicely, 19, jumped onto a man’s back and pounded his shoulders when he tried to take a 40-inch Samsung flat-screen television to which she had laid claim. “That’s my TV!” Nicely, 19, shouted. “That’s my TV!”

A police officer and security guard intervened, but not before Nicely took an elbow in the face. In the end, she was the one with the $798 television, marked down from $1,000. “That’s right,” she yelled as her adversary walked away. “This here is my TV!”

Charisma Booker, also on the hunt for a television, said she had been shopping at Wal-Mart every Black Friday for nearly a decade. “There are fewer people here this year, but they’re more aggressive,” she said. “I’ve never seen anybody fight like this. This is crazy.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.