Dead on Black Friday at Walmart
This year’s Black Friday tragedy is a Walmart stampede which left a 34-year-old temp worker (Jdimytai Damour) dead and four shoppers (one eight months pregnant) injured. 2000 shopper stormed the Queens-area Walmart gates at 5 AM after chanting “push the doors in.” People at the scene reported chaos:
“They were jumping over the barricades and breaking down the door,” said Pat Alexander. “Everyone was screaming. You just had to keep walking on your toes to keep from falling over.”
Kimberly Cribbs said “When they were saying they had to leave, that an employee got killed, people were yelling, ‘I’ve been on line since Friday morning!’ They kept shopping.”
The deals included a $798 Samsung 50-inch Plasma HDTV, a Bissel Compact Upright Vacuum for $28 and Men’s Wrangler Tough Jeans for $8.
The Wallmart in question, in Long Island NY
I was wondering why this would happen. I’ve been in huge crowds–concerts, for example, regularly have many thousands of rowdy, excited riotous fans–but they’re always carefully controlled to minimize the chance of a trampling rush. The Walmart itself is not in a particularly bad part of NY; the average salaries, education, age, and racial composition are more or less normal.
On the other hand, there’s a thread on slickdeals where seancashmere disagrees:
Yeah, really and truly, the people who live in Valley Stream and some points to the East have nice homes and are educated enough, but the people who shop at the Valley Stream Walmart are terrible. They are under educated and poor. Many come from Jamaica and South Ozone Park, Queens, the projects, Rosedale and the surrounding areas…
I don’t buy that particular argument; any tightly-packed large crowd is dangerous, whether filled with the upper or lower crusts. Pictures of the scene show the problem: a small doorway, and way too many people.
A picture of the crowd waiting for Walmart to open
Interestingly, there are other incidents driven by crowds, bargains, and human rage. For example, see Fatal shooting followed toy store brawl about a Black Friday skirmish inside a Toys-R-Us.
Just listen to Gizmodo (oh how I hate to say they’re right on this one)–You Don’t Really Want This Crap. Deals aren’t to die for.
