Posted on 07/12/2026 4:00:21 AM PDT by DFG
Workers at a Granada Hills Vons said their managers kept the grocery store open for hours with a customer's dead body lying in an aisle.
Paszion Horner-Smith said she was working as a supervisor on July 5 when one of her customers suffered a medical emergency in the supermarket's bakery aisle.
"It's just something I've never, ever in my 27 years that I've worked for the company, ever encountered or dealt with," she said.
Horner-Smith and another employee performed CPR, but the customer died.
The Los Angeles Fire Department said crews were called to the store just after 7 p.m. that night for a report of a cardiac arrest.
Horner-Smith said her corporate managers told her to cover the body with carts and umbrellas while the store remained open.
"I'm being called by someone in corporate because they're looking at the cameras, telling me that I need to barricade the body by using carts," she said.
Horner-Smith said the customer's family stayed at the store for four hours until a mortuary removed their loved one from the store.
"This poor family that's just sitting there," Horner-Smith said. "They can't even see their loved one. They can't touch their loved one. They sat in the store for four hours while people continued to shop around their deceased loved one."
UFCW Local 770 President Kathy Finn said she contacted the Albertson's labor relations department after learning about the incident. She said the company has not responded to her questions about protocols for handling a customer's death in the store. The union urged the company to review its emergency policies.
"This situation is just one incident of that kind of callous attitude towards the needs of the workers," Finn said.
(Excerpt) Read more at cbsnews.com ...
Pretty sure the EMS here in Virginia transported my neighbor to the hospital.
It’s not a crime scene, wasn’t shot or stabbed, the refrigerator didn’t zap him as he reached for that milk.
If anyone needs to look at the body , they can go to the hospital, not the bread aisle at Shop and Save.
Please, tell me that's not true.
Not surprised in LA that it took four hours to remove the body.
This is a city where if you call the cops they may/may not show up - why people say “man with gun” to get a response.
Also where the parts of the city burned to the ground while the hydrants ran dry, the reservoir to stop fires was dry for almost two years and over 100 fire engines were in the shop, with no money to repair them.
And, we’ve got two candidates for mayor either of which will keep the same policies going.
Lol!
Thank you, Principal Skinner.
To die for!
I think he's on the spectrum, along with TexasGator. Quick to grasp anything except the punchline.
I WORKED AS A GROCERY CHECKER FOR A NUMBER OF YEARS:
I CANNOT IMAGINE THE PHRASING THIS SITUATION WOULD CALL FOR IN THE EMPLOYEE HANDBOOK.
“HIT THE BALL-—DRAG FRED”........
“USUAL FOURSOME GOES OUT FOR SATURDAY GAME OF GOLF”:
THEY ARE HOURS LATE COMING HOME:
WIFE ASKS HUBBY WHY:
“FRED DIED ON 3RD HOLE===SLOWED US DOWN==”HIT THE BALL—DRAG FRED”
A SERIOUS CRIME
Correct. This is what happens in completely broken cultures, like ours.
The only proper response is for two or more alpha males to immediately step in, move the body to a private spot, and then let others sit with and console the family, right next to the body if they want, until someone arrives to remove it to the proper location (funeral home or morgue). This is hopefully done before bodily fluids start leaking out all over the place.
I can imagine store ‘managment’ not wanting to do anything at all for fear of legal consequences of some kind. This is what our society has come to. I can imagine also that the manager at the store at the time did everything they could to distance themselves from any involvement in the situation, when they should have in fact been on the scene from the first second to the last.
Life today seems like one endless episode of the Twilight Zone, and has so for a few years now. People are generally imbeciles, and afraid of their own shadows.
...the store to close until the body is carried away. Moving the body prior to coroner sign off is a crime.
Does Von’s (Kroger’s) have a section in their employees handbook for dealing with death? I doubt it would be 4 hours in the sane parts of the USA.
That would have been another proper response. Leaving the body there on the floor, and (if I understand the story correctly) keeping the family away is beyond the pale, however.
Bread and cake sales plummeted, but it was offset by a rise in alcohol sales.
People still need groceries.
CA_Inanity Bump!
Never move a body...it doesn’t belong to you. Call 9-11.
You need less than 15 bodies to use express lane.
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