Pokémon scalper arrested after punching man at Target, four-year-old girl hurt in chaos

A Pokémon scalper was reportedly arrested and banned from a Target store in Lisbon, Connecticut after punching a man in the face during a confrontation over the store's two-per-person purchase limit on 30th Anniversary merchandise. The incident happened on August 28, 2026, and footage went viral in early September after being submitted to PokéStreetz, a community account that documents bad behavior in the Pokémon TCG scene.

In the video, two scalpers with a cart loaded with Pokémon products head toward self-checkout. A man and his girlfriend confront them about ignoring the two-item limit — the scalpers openly confirm they're buying everything and warn the couple to stay away from their cart. At the self-checkout, one scalper punches the recorder in the face. He drops his phone, stumbles, and reportedly falls into a four-year-old girl standing nearby. The girl fell and hurt her elbow. The scalper fled the store, allegedly leaving his wallet behind — and was arrested when he came back to retrieve it. According to PokéStreetz, Target staff initially declined to act, so the girl's father called the police directly. No official police records or local news reports confirming the arrest have surfaced yet.

The brawl was independently corroborated by a local TCG player in a Pokémon drops and restocks Facebook group, who described Lisbon Target that day as "a nightmare" and confirmed someone "whipped out all the Hops and AH tins" before getting violent when recorded. The incident fits a broader pattern of chaos surrounding Pokémon's 30th Anniversary merchandise drops, which have drawn massive crowds, overnight lines, and ghost-chair queue reservations outside retailers across the country. Scalpers have been a persistent problem at these events, bulk-buying limited stock to resell at inflated prices — a practice that has repeatedly put them at odds with regular fans and collectors.

The wider scalper situation may be shifting, though: reports suggest the 30th Anniversary card supply has been large enough to hurt resale margins, with scalpers struggling to flip product at a profit. Whether that economic pressure reduces confrontations like this one remains to be seen. For now, the Lisbon incident stands as one of the uglier moments of the anniversary cycle — a child got hurt, a man got punched, and it all started over a cart of trading card tins.