Worker Dies in Black Friday Store Rush

[SlickWilly440]

http://abclocal.go.com/wabc/story?section=news/local&id=6529135

VALLEY STREAM (WABC) -- A Wal-Mart employee died and four others were hurt in the Black Friday rush to get into the Valley Stream store this morning.

The injuries occurred as the shoppers crammed into the Wal-Mart when the doors opened at 5 a.m. Some 2,000 shoppers were waiting to get inside the store for Black Friday sales.

Police said the shoppers knocked the man to the ground at 5:03 a.m., three minutes after the store opened.

Kimberly Cribbs, who witnessed the stampede, said shoppers were acting like "savages.... When they were saying they had to leave, that an employee got killed, people were yelling 'I've been on line since yesterday morning. They kept shopping."

A 34-year-old Wal-Mart employee suffered an apparent heart attack and was rushed to a nearby hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

An autopsy will determine the exact cause of death. His name was not released.

Four others were also hurt in the crush, including a 28-year-old pregnant woman. She was taken to a nearby hospital, where doctors determined her baby was fine.

The store was closed to incoming shoppers following the incident. Those already inside were escorted out with their purchases.

The ensuing emergency activity clogged the Green Acres Mall parking lot. The Wal-Mart remained closed while police investigated.

Nassau County police spokesman Lt. Michael Fleming described the scene as "utter chaos." "This crowd was out of control," he said.

Criminal charges were possible in the case, but Fleming said it would be difficult to identify individual shoppers. Authorities were reviewing surveillance video.

The store reopened around 1:00 p.m.

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.

"The safety and security of our customers and associates is our top priority," said Wal-Mart representative Dan Fogleman. "Our thoughts and prayers are with them and their families at this difficult time. At this point, facts are still being assembled and we are working closely with the Nassau County police as they investigate what occurred."

Is this how you Americans have become? So obsessed with saving money and waiting outside a store for you materialistic and greedy ideals that the safety of human life means nothing? I find this absolutely despicable.

[Urameshi YuSooKey]

And you aren't an American yourself?

That's really unfortunate and this happens every year. It's mayhem for profit.

[whispering]

Is this how you Americans have become? So obsessed with saving money and waiting outside a store for you materialistic and greedy ideals that the safety of human life means nothing? I find this absolutely despicable.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/london/4252421.stm

[SlickWilly440]

And you aren't an American yourself?

Well yeah, but you don't have to put it like that.

Opening up a store on Black Friday is like opening up the gate for a bull run; open it and gtfo of the way.

[ak24]

I was waiting in line since 9pm last night at Best Buy, and I thought people behaved pretty well (plus, cops were there). It's just because there are so many people coming in that it's almost like a subway passenger in Japan trying to get in and be squished.

Heard from my friends that waiting in CompUSA was their worst experience two years ago as people tried to cut, and like more than 10 people tried to get in when the store opened.

Also, you shouldn't blame this on America. Only some stores are getting major stories, and you shouldn't say that as if every store in America that opens on Black Friday will result in what the article said...

[SlickWilly440]

^
What did you buy by the way. Did you get any good deals?

[Anders]

I've always felt that having "Black Friday" sales is a bad idea. I can't remember a year that has gone by without at least one person dying from being trampled or beaten to death over a electronic game system. I've stood in line twice in my adult life- once for a wii, second for wii-fit. both times employees came to the door with numbered tickets. If you were early enough in line, you got a ticket. If not- you were out of luck. When the doors opened, you walked nice and easily through to the service desk and turned in your ticket for the item. The only not-so-nice thing was the swearing coming from those who didn't get there early enough.

[SlickWilly440]

Also, you shouldn't blame this on America. Only some stores are getting major stories, and you shouldn't say that as if every store in America that opens on Black Friday will result in what the article said...

Well, CNN is making it sound like every store that opened in America for Black Friday is to blame, and their influence on me has made me think in this manner; so it's not my fault.

The problem is called horde mentality, where people as a whole act differently compared to when they act alone.

Wal-Mart is going to get sued, and CNN is staying that tramplings seem to happen every Black-Friday.

[Jetsetlemming]

I've never waited outside stores, fuck that. Only time I've ever done something similar was for the opening day of Men in Black, and we left like three minutes after we got there and found a line outside the theater.

[Anders]

Certainly there are better ways of handling these major sales, and you would think that the major chains have caught on to the right way by now. They definitely share a major part of the blame, but not all of it. People get crazy during the holiday season, and I'm willing to bet that most people go crazy to provide the very best for their loved ones. Every year for the past 8, things have been getting tougher and tougher for middle class Americans. The cost of energy to heat their houses, gas for the car and jobs moving overseas are just the start for the difficulties families have faced. Given all those obstacles, people still want to buy the best for their families. Ads for $200 discounts on a flat screen HD TV, or limited but unknown quantities of a certain game are very attractive when you have to stretch your budget to still make your bills on time.

[Joe Rocket]

I didn't even bother to go shopping today.

I wanted to take the bike out but visions of getting smacked by
30% sale hungry drivers in chevy tahoes who are so in a rush to get
that 42 inch HDTV from Best Buy that they don't see anything else on
the road but that vision big blue box-of-a-building on the horizon that
I just puttered around the neighborhood instead.

[h2orowe]

Well, CNN is making it sound like every store that opened in America for Black Friday is to blame, and their influence on me has made me think in this manner; so it's not my fault.
God damn, SlickWilly. Stop blaming other people for how you think. I'm pretty sure I've told you this three or four times, but don't believe every single thing you hear and take everything with a grain of salt.

[SlickWilly440]

God damn, SlickWilly. Stop blaming other people for how you think. I'm pretty sure I've told you this three or four times, but don't believe every single thing you hear and take everything with a grain of salt.

But blaming other people for how I think gives me the sense that I have no responsibility for how I think because the exterior influences in the environment have totally affected how I think.

I wouldn't be a loyal television/news view, if I took there stories with a grain of salt, and be seen as a traitor in the eyes of the Commercial Media Corporations.

If I don't believe every single thing I hear and take everything with a grain of salt, then should I take what a just read about taking everything I hear as a grain of salt as a grain of salt and therefore continue thinking the way I am?

I'm so confuesed.... :boggled:

[Sock Full of Boiled Dimes]

You know what I did on Black Friday?

I slept.

Because its tradition in my family to sleep in after Thanksgiving, because no one wakes me up to go shopping.

[SlickWilly440]

Yeah, I slept in as well.

Sleep FTW.

[riona]

I went shopping! I always do. It was incredibly fun, as always. I was at a Walmart too! But in Minnesota. No one died, but people were line-jumping and it was incredibly irritating.
The people who were shopping at Walmart were incredibly fucking stupid. Some were waiting in line for hours before the store opened. When I got in there at 5:30 (half an hour after it opened), none of the door-busters were sold out. There were bargain-priced flatscreens, blenders, and GPS's lying on the ground in the aisles. The computers, printers, and expensive children's games didn't disappear for several hours. The woman in front of me was buying popcorn and toilet paper! What would compel someone to get up at 4am on Black Friday and go out to Walmart, be pushed and shoved to within an inch of wit's ends, just to get popcorn and toilet paper?! WHAT IS WRONG WITH THESE PEOPLE?!?

[SlickWilly440]

^
You forgot to mention what you bought.

[Roxie]

from the ny daily mail

Worker dies at Long Island Wal-Mart after being trampled in Black Friday stampede

BY JOE GOULD, CLARE TRAPASSO and RICH SCHAPIRO
DAILY NEWS WRITERS

A Wal-Mart worker died early Friday after an "out-of-control" mob of frenzied shoppers smashed through the Long Island store's front doors and trampled him, police said.

The Black Friday stampede plunged the Valley Stream outlet into chaos, knocking several employees to the ground and sending others scurrying atop vending machines to avoid the horde.

When the madness ended, 34-year-old Jdimytai Damour was dead and four shoppers, including a woman eight months pregnant, were injured.
CAUGHT ON CAMERA: WAL-MART CROWD MOMENTS BEFORE DEADLY STAMPEDE

"He was bum-rushed by 200 people," said Wal-Mart worker Jimmy Overby, 43.

"They took the doors off the hinges. He was trampled and killed in front of me.

"They took me down, too ... I didn't know if I was going to live through it. I literally had to fight people off my back," Overby said.

Damour, a temporary maintenance worker from Jamaica, Queens, was gasping for air as shoppers continued to surge into the store after its 5 a.m. opening, witnesses said.

Even officers who arrived to perform CPR on the trampled worker were stepped on by wild-eyed shoppers streaming inside, a cop at the scene said.

"They pushed him down and walked all over him," Damour's sobbing sister, Danielle, 41, said. "How could these people do that?

"He was such a young man with a good heart, full of life. He didn't deserve that."

Damour's sister said doctors told the family he died of a heart attack.

His cousin, Ernst Damour, called the circumstances "completely unacceptable."

"His body was a stepping bag with so much disregard for human life," Ernst Damour, 37, said. "There has to be some accountability."

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."

When paramedics arrived, Damour's condition was grave.

"They were pumping his chest, trying to bring him back, and there was nothing," said Dennis Smokes, 36, a Wal-Mart worker.

Damour was taken to Franklin Hospital and pronounced dead at 6:03 a.m.

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.

Fleming said criminal charges were possible but that it would be difficult to identify individual shoppers in surveillance videos.

Items on sale at the Wal-Mart store included a $798 Samsung 50-inch Plasma HDTV, a Bissel Compact Upright Vacuum for $28 and Men's Wrangler Tough Jeans for $8.

The Long Island store reopened at 1 p.m. and was packed within minutes.

"I look at these people's faces and I keep thinking one of them could have stepped on him," said one employee. "How could you take a man's life to save $20 on a TV?"

rschapiro@nydailynews.com

With Brendan Brosh and James Queally

[riona]

^
You forgot to mention what you bought.

I bought a printer (which I actually DID need) at Walmart, I Am Legend and The Devil Wears Prada at Target, and a hair straightener and Bare Minerals at Ulta.

Also, people are sick.

[Dresh]

I had to wake up at 2:50 AM to get ready for my 4:30 to 1:00 PM shift at Toys R Us. Fortunately, it was not the Toys R Us where those guys shot each other, instead we just had a pissed off Indian man.

[SlickWilly440]

^
What was that guy upset about?

[Jetsetlemming]

I went out last night around 8 on a whim to get some snacks. Spent $10 on random stuff. My local wal-mart had a horrible setup for Black Friday- more than half their registers broke somehow, closing off those lanes. There were only two registers open at the Pathmark next door, too.

[haterllnation]

^In my experience, this is just how Wal-mart operates.

[RoxFontaine]

That sucks to hear. People are ridiculous.

It was really calm down here in Florida for Black Friday. We went to a midnight sale at a mall and it was nice and peaceful. The line at Coach was crazy though.

[akitaka]

Black Friday is balls. Online shopping deals and season-sales are way safer and more convenient to attend. For electronics, newegg that shit.

Heh...."bumrushed"....

[stsparky]

cyberMonday is for the smarter shopper.

[whispering]

Sensing catastrophe, nervous employees formed a human chain inside the entrance to slow down the mass of shoppers.

I dont get it, isnt that making matters worse? Wouldnt it have been better to open the doors and "run for cover"? ...or not open at all.

[puzzo]

I dont get it, isnt that making matters worse? Wouldnt it have been better to open the doors and "run for cover"? ...or not open at all.

If they had intelligence levels that high do you think they would have been working at Walmart in the first place?

[RoxFontaine]

If they had intelligence levels that high do you think they would have been working at Walmart in the first place?

:bored: If YOU had an intelligence quotient that high, you'd realize that you can't just not do your job at Fortune 500's number one company.

[puzzo]

The reason they are a fortune 500 company isn't because they have the best employees in the world, it's cause they have the cheapest. That and the ability to buy things in amounts that mom and pop stores can't contend with, make them part of that list. Also between Sam's Club and Walmart, I'm surprised there are enough people out there willing to work for peanuts.

I've yet to see the CEO of a multi-billion dollar company work for minimum wage.

Plus seriously, who sees 2 thousand sale crazy soccer moms with an extra 5 pounds of turkey each, and stands in front of them to slow them down? These people don't need your defense, they need an education.

[RoxFontaine]

Working at Wal-Mart doesn't make one stupid or any less deserving of common courtesy and respect. The man was trying to do his job.

You obviously don't know any CEOs either. There are plenty of self-made millionaires. They started with nothing and made their earnings the long, hard and arduous way. You know what they know more than anyone? That "little people" make big business.

[SlickWilly440]

I've yet to see the CEO of a multi-billion dollar company work for minimum wage.

I saw a commercial for a show on Fox called "The Hidden Milionare", where the several millionaires have to work minimum wage jobs for a whole week. Then they have to reveal the fact that they are millionaires to their co-workers and donate a huge sum of money.

[Beowulf]

I saw a commercial for a show on Fox called "The Hidden Milionare", where the several millionaires have to work minimum wage jobs for a whole week. Then they have to reveal the fact that they are millionaires to their co-workers and donate a huge sum of money.
That is one of the most insulting shows I've ever seen.

[Stephy]

Mm, there needs to be a better way to ensure safety each year for these sales. There is always injures each year.

I went Black Friday shopping. I didn't stay and camp and all that crazy stuff. I waited until the afternoon when it died down and then went to browse through to see whats left. I wasn't even looking for anything particular. Lots of things were left over, so I'm not sure why people camp out (sometimes even 2 days before the actual sale) and are so aggressive. In fact many items that had amazing sales were still in stock the next day too. *shrugs*

I didn't buy much. I did get a nice deal on jeans. 2 for 25 dollars~! How lovely cheap. I would have stocked up on jeans if it were not for the fact that my jean size is hard to find and rarely stocked. ='(

Working at Wal-Mart doesn't make one stupid or any less deserving of common courtesy and respect.
^This.

[SlickWilly440]

That is one of the most insulting shows I've ever seen.

Yeah I agree, just seeing the commercial made me think that the hidden millionaire was rubbing his nose into the minimum wage worker about the fact that he/she is a millionaire.

[SlickWilly440]

I would have stocked up on jeans if it were not for the fact that my jean size is hard to find and rarely stocked. ='(


Well on the bright side I guess it means that your jeans size is average, compared to everyone else b/c everyone else is buy those sizes as well..

I hate it when I go jeans shopping and the only size the stores have are the sizes that not a lot of people wear, like 38's and 28's pants sizes.

(sorry for double post)

[Trump]

It makes me sad that it was an employee that got hurt instead of one of the retarded shoppers.

[Kannon]

Definitely.

[Roxie]

That is one of the most insulting shows I've ever seen.
I dunno...more insulting than "Exiled"?

[haterllnation]

Reality television, in general, is rather insulting.

IRT: What gets me is that, even with people there to revive him, shopping continued. Next year, they will be rewarded bats to fend off the mob. That or they can make them come in two at a time. No more bum rush tactics from now on.

[MNJetter]

Is this how you Americans have become? So obsessed with saving money and waiting outside a store for you materialistic and greedy ideals that the safety of human life means nothing? I find this absolutely despicable.
What do you mean, "you Americans?" I detest Black Friday and everything it stands for, and most of my friends do as well.

[Kannon]

Same, I refuse to shop on "Black Friday"...