I'd like to take this opportunity to express my utter disgust at the crowd of shoppers who mobbed the doors of a Wal*Mart in Long Island yesterday morning, broke through the doors, and trampled a 34-year old employee to death. There is NOTHING that can be found in Wal*Mart that is worth crushing a human being for–none of you were in desperate need of food or medicines that could only be had in that store and nowhere else on the planet. Believe it or not, your kids will survive if they don't get Guitar Hero for Christmas.
Wal-Mart Employee Trampled to Death (The New York Times):
…Detective Lt. Michael Fleming, who is in charge of the investigation for the Nassau police, said the store lacked adequate security. He called the scene “utter chaos” and said the “crowd was out of control.” As for those who had run over the victim, criminal charges were possible, the lieutenant said. “I’ve heard other people call this an accident, but it is not,” he said. “Certainly it was a foreseeable act.”…
I strongly urge the detective and the county DA to pursue criminal charges against these people. There is security video from the store, so there should be no problem identifying them and providing evidence of their guilt. Nobody “accidentally” breaks a door down and kills a man. The Damour family will have an empty seat at the dinner table for the rest of their lives because of a bunch of stupid assholes wanted to save a buck.
It's 2008 folks, you don't get to be cattle anymore. Whoever went to that Wal*Mart yesterday morning and forgot to bring their humanity? I hope you rot in prison.
The high cost of low prices indeed.
BTW – Wal*mart ought to be nailed to the wall for precipitating an unsafe situation.
That was some amazingly disgusting news. I can't think of this too hard. I get too upset.
Black Friday Death
I haven't been in a Wal-mart for a couple years now. And I don't miss it one little bit. I hate Christmas, too.
I agree with James. I'd say Wal-Mart is at least as culpable if not more so, than the individuals themselves. They created the environment because they wanted those shoppers whipped into a frenzy to spend, spend, spend!
It's difficult to single out individual members of the mob. After all, the whole thing is surging forward from all sides. Once the doors broke and the mob fell forward, I think everyone was carried, to a certain degree.
I think legally, you have the only viable case. Those at the “bow wave” were most likely “in extremis” as we say at sea.
And yes, if security had been properly posted, this could have been averted.
But this is what pisses me off the most:
There are people who were there who, at some point, decided that decency didn't matter any more and started this thing. If they were not there, this WOULD have been averted. They will never be found, in all likelihood, and even if they were, they could get lawyers who would doubtless convince a jury that they were put in a position where the stress of possibly not getting an X-Box 360 caused them to snap. And it will work, because technicality, not personal responsibility and justice, rules.
I don't care if these people are “great” moms and dads who drive their kids to school, take them to soccer games, pack their lunches, are den mothers/scout leaders, blah blah blah. They decided to do something that could snowball and become harmful to others – a decision you or I would not have made, whether or not security was there, because we know better.
At that point, they became vermin. Whether they intended someone to die or not (and I know they did not) THEY INITIATED IT.
And they will never be found. And they will maybe feel regret, maybe rationalize it with the “well, it was a mob and I know they only had a limited supply of PS3's” excuse.
F*** THEM.
Yes, absolutely, Wal-Mart has a lot to answer for. But so do people. A “Blitz Line Starts Here” sign? YHGTBFSM! Typical of the mentality we have allowed ourselves to sink to.
Reckless homicide convictions will never be a realization for them. Any “justice” will have to come from happenstance – for example, if one of them gets hit by a truck and the last thing he/she smells and tastes before losing consciousness for the final time is his/her own blood. Kind of like poor Mr. Damour.
My $0.02.
Yes, there were people pushing and those people will likely never be found unless they were so blatantly trying to cause a stampede that their actions can be discerned from everyone else's movement (for instance, if they were digging in and pushing with their shoulders, not being pushed from behind.
Most likely, though, they will never be found.
Any one of us could be at the front of a crowd like that and have nowhere to go. Imagine the horror of being pushed toward the doors.
I've been in a situation a little bit like this once, as a child, and I can tell you that the people in the front have no control.
The only way around it is to not be in that situation. In other words: give up your place at the front of the line.
I try not to be in crowds if I can help it.
At some point we need to step back and look at the culture, the marketing, the manufactured desire, the keeping-up-with-the-Joneses, and the obligation of the holiday season. We have to assess the impact on our lives, the culpability in this misery.