The New York Daily News reports a Wal-Mart employee, 34-year-old Jdimytai Damour, apparently hired as a temporary overnight stock clerk, was trampled by a surging mob of shoppers and was later pronounced dead a little over an hour later, apparently of a heart attack. I say apparently because it would be foolish to think that his untimely death wasn't partly caused by the fact that he was stepped on repeatedly after being pushed over.
You know, it makes you wonder what kind of creatures we have become. We pride ourselves in so many things here in America, but we often don't stop and consider what we should improve upon.
Consumerism might be one area. Greed and mob tendencies to save a buck might be another few areas that need improvement.
So here we go.
This Black Friday (November 28th, 2008), a Wal-Mart in Long Island, New York, was the location of a brutal mob of shoppers that trampled over a Wal-Mart employee in their efforts to get discounted items.
Apparently, there was no real sense of crowd control OUTSIDE of the actual store. As seen by photos taken by a shopper (photo credit is Augustine for News; more photos at the story link) before, during, and after the incident, a significant amount of people were gathered outside before the store opened.
Here is an excerpt of the story at the New York Daily News:
Roughly 2,000 people gathered outside the Wal-Mart's doors in the predawn darkness.
Chanting "push the doors in," the crowd pressed against the glass as the clock ticked down to the 5 a.m. opening.
Sensing catastrophe, nervous employees formed a human chain inside the entrance to slow down the mass of shoppers.
It didn't work.
The mob barreled in and overwhelmed workers.
"They were jumping over the barricades and breaking down the door," said Pat Alexander, 53, of Crown Heights, Brooklyn. "Everyone was screaming. You just had to keep walking on your toes to keep from falling over."
After the throng toppled Damour, his fellow employees had to fight through the crowd to help him, police said.
Witness Kimberly Cribbs said shoppers acted like "savages."
"When they were saying they had to leave, that an employee got killed, people were yelling, 'I've been on line since Friday morning!'" Cribbs said. "They kept shopping."
It's maddening and to be blunt, just sad that this kind of incident could occur. I ran across this story not but 30 minutes ago, and I just can't describe how I feel knowing that there are people out there that would literally walk over a man to save money on an item.
Hank Mullany, president of Wal-Mart's northeast division, said the company took extraordinary safety precautions.
"We expected a large crowd this morning and added additional internal security, additional third-party security, additional store associates and we worked closely with the Nassau County police," he said in a statement.
"We also erected barricades. Despite all of our precautions, this unfortunate event occurred."
The 28-year-old pregnant woman and three other shoppers were taken to area hospitals with minor injuries, police said.
In a news conference after the incident, Nassau County police spokesman Lt. Michael Fleming described the crowd as "out of control" and the scene as "utter chaos." He said Wal-Mart did not have enough security onhand.
I place 99% of the blame on the shoppers themselves, but I also place that minuscule remaining percent on Wal-Mart. Now, I know, the people who actually trampled this guy are to blame. But as a huge retail chain, this Wal-Mart should have known better than to allow the mob that formed outside its doors. I have been apart of a few big-time holiday sales (like last weekend, in front of a Micro Center on a Saturday morning) and even the launch of the Nintendo Wii 2 years ago, which had me waiting in line for over 6 hours on a November night in front of a Best Buy.
But what did both of those particular retailers do? They not only handed out tickets to the big sale items (or Wiis), usually limited to one item per household, they also limited the amount of people who entered the store at one time for the first few hours. Calm, orderly lines snaked around the stores' entrances.
There was no mad dash; no mob; no trampling of employees. I bet if you interviewed employees, they wouldn't have worried for their lives at any point. At this Valley Stream Wal-Mart, there seemed to be no tickets handed out, and instead the retailer almost seemed to encourage the mob that formed by not forcing a line and stating that they would hand out tickets.
Now, as I mentioned, 99% of the blame falls squarely on the mob of shoppers, who are going to be incredibly difficult to identify by security videos according to police. I just think that there are always two categories in a particular problem like this. An enabler and the enabled. That doesn't take into account how much of the blame falls on either category of course, and in this case I think nearly all of it is justly on the shoppers shoulders for their ridiculous mob antics.
I will follow up on this story when I have more news, as I feel this wont be the end. For now, I hope that this is a reminder to treat everyone, even employees at Wal-Mart, with the same courtesy and respect as any human being hopes to be treated with. People in customer service and retail breath the same air and aren't robots as one poster on a forum I frequent said. Stay safe out there yall.
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