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The Black Friday Thread: Walmart Worker Trampled and Killed By Crowd
Fuzzy Cumulonimbus Cloud
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
This is the designated Black Friday thread.
Talk about the great deals you got!
Share your best horror stories.
Discuss the insanity of mobs!
Yikes.
Talk about the great deals you got!
Share your best horror stories.
Discuss the insanity of mobs!
Yikes.
A worker was killed in the crush Friday after a throng of shoppers eager for post-Thanksgiving bargains burst through the doors at a suburban Wal-Mart, authorities said.
At least four other people were injured, and the store in Valley Stream on Long Island was closed.
Wal-Mart Stores Inc. in Bentonville, Ark., called the incident a "tragic situation" and said the employee came from a temporary agency and was doing maintenance work at the store.
"He was bum-rushed by 200 people," co-worker Jimmy Overby, 43, told the Daily News. "They took the doors off the hinges. He was trampled and killed in front of me. They took me down too. ... I literally had to fight people off my back."
Nassau County police said the 34-year-old worker was taken to a hospital where he was pronounced dead at about 6 a.m. The man's name was not released and the cause of death was not immediately known.
A police statement said shortly after the store's 5 a.m. opening time, shoppers "physically broke down the doors, knocking (the worker) to the ground."
A metal portion of the door was crumpled like an accordion.
Shoppers around the country lined up early outside stores in the annual bargain hunting ritual known as Black Friday. Many stores open early and stay open late, and some of the most dramatic bargains are available in limited quantities.
Among the bargains offered by Wal-Mart for Friday were Samsung 50-inch high definition Plasma TVs for less than $800.
Witnesses told the Daily News that before the store was closed, eager shoppers streamed past emergency crews as they worked furiously to save the worker's life.
"They were working on him, but you could see he was dead," said Halcyon Alexander, 29. "People were still coming through."
A 28-year-old pregnant woman was taken to a hospital for observation, and she and the unborn baby were both reported to be OK, said Sgt. Anthony Repalone, a Nassau County police spokesman. Four or five other people suffered minor injuries, he said.
Ellen Davis, a spokeswoman at National Retail Federation, said the group knew of no other incident where a retail employee has died working on the day after Thanksgiving.
Wal-Mart is working closely with police, company spokesman Dan Fogleman said.
"The safety and security of our customers and associates is our top priority," Fogleman said. "Our thoughts and prayers are with them and their families at this difficult time."
Fuzzy Cumulonimbus Cloud on
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Nah, that's really fucked up.
Ugh.
https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561197970666737/
It's ridiculous and almost shameful.
Anyway: wtf humanity.
[strike]Also the pregnant woman who was partly trampled at Wal~Mart miscarried.[/strike] So today's black friday death count is at 3, and it's only the afternoon.
Who holds some of the blame here, and what can be done? This has been generations in the making, after all, and won't get fixed overnight. But still, it is beyond a travesty. And this year's sales aren't even good. Would there be even more casualties had the TV's been an additional 10% off?
Will this stop news outlets from reporting on store rush-ins like something that's totally funny and not something that'll obviously get someone killed?
The only other solution I can think of right now is hiring a Korean Starcraft champion and let him deal with these Zerg-rushes.
The rushes are due to limited quantities. So unless you can come up with a bag of holding in the backroom you'll still have people camping out, and you'll still have rushes.
I wonder if the Wal~Mart death would qualify under lynching laws, as it was a mob killing.
You misspelled "completely and utterly." And what really makes my blood boil about the Walmart worker is that nobody will get charged, nobody will get justice, and the whole fucked up thing will happen again next year.
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Oh well. I - for one - am glad civilians don't carry guns over here. We have had some shit going on during big sales, but I can't remember anyone ever getting killed...let alone shot.
*edit: whoops, didn't want to turn this into a gun laws discussion. Consider this post an off-hand comment, please.
Alternatively, they could move all the sales online.
Just look at the thread in G&T. Half the people got their deals online and were damn happy about it. If people knew they weren't missing out by staying home, they'd gladly abandon the Black Friday tradition altogether.
https://twitter.com/Hooraydiation
The reason it is called Black Friday is because it is --or was-- the day that stores finally came back into the black for the entire year. November 25 they were still in debt due to payroll, inventory, maintenance, keeping the lights on, &c. for the rest of the year and then 24 hours of insanity brings them across the finish line to profitability. Then all of December pays for restarting for next year, bonuses, and dividends. It could still likely be improved while maintaining the massive profits that are garnered, but you'd be insane to expect a store to pretend that making $400k in sales in one day --which is what my podunk Target made in the 4th largest Chicago suburb-- doesn't have a major draw to it.
The idiots at Toys 'R' Us, sure, but the trampling death is also partly a function of crowds/mobs. You simply can't stop a wall of people. The ones in the back who are pushing don't realize that they need to stop, and the ones in the front can't repel the collective pushing of dozens of other people.
They do, but people either don't realize it or don't care because zomg black friday!!! gotta have it now!!!
They should set up some turrets for when people come running in.
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Lurkers, man. Only way to deal with crowds.
Just about impossible to get a conviction on that, let alone identify the defendants
A civil suit by his family against WalMart might succeed though
I know. I think just charging them all would send the message.
Be pretty wasteful, perhaps.
I wonder how people who were toward the front of the line feel, or will feel, when they see this report and make the connection.
Doesn't lynching laws cover mob/crowd killings?
Wal-Mart isn't really responsible for a crazed mob busting down the fucking doors.
Their sale, their building, their security responsibility, their employee
You could make a case
Wal-Mart isn't responsible for a random crazed mob walking down the street and breaking into their store. Wal-Mart is responsible for the crazed mob that they know shows up every Black Friday, that they advertise, pander to, and encourage. Wal-Mart created a situation where a trampling death was an easily foreseeable consequence, didn't have sufficient staff on hand to handle the rush, and are lucky that "beyond a reasonable doubt" would be very, very difficult to prove on this one, or their management would probably get charged with depraved indifference or criminally negligent homicide.
It'd be better for some shoppers involved in the death to get prosecuted/sued if at all possible.
Maybe some (but of course, not all) shoppers wouldn't be dicks on Black Friday if they knew they could get punished for acting like dicks.
I know it would send a better message but in this situation unless someone actually admitted to trying to kill the dude it's not happening