A woman walks into a Burlington Coat Factory and offers to spend her new "lottery fortune" on shopping sprees for everyone. It sounds like the start of a joke -- and it sort of was. Except that it really happened, and it started what police called a minor riot.

Linda Brown, 44, pulled up to the discount outerwear retailer in a stretch Hummer and promised everybody in the store $500 worth of stuff for every person there. Naturally, everyone in the store got excited and called their friends and family to come to the store and stock up as well.

By the time the employees figured out the woman wasn't actually going to pay, there were at least 500 people crowding the aisles, around 1,000 people outside waiting to get in, and two dozen police officers to control the crowd. But 24 cops apparently weren't enough to control the angry mob and a riot ensued.

The woman was brought into police custody by the driver of the Hummer, who was miffed that she couldn't pay him the $900 she owed him for whisking her around all day. She had a few outstanding warrants, but no charges are being pressed for this little kerfuffle, pending psychiatric evaluation.