Posted on 11/25/2005 2:30:39 PM PST by Shermy
It was a dangerous morning on Black Friday at a West Michigan Wal-Mart.
An impatient crowd stormed the doors in the mad rush to get to those door-buster deals inside.
It was an ugly scene when the doors opened at the Cascade Township Wal-Mart. Hundreds of shoppers pushed and shoved their way into the store, trampling a number of customers, sending two to the hospital.
At 5:00 a.m. the doors opened, holiday shoppers rushed in, and immediately one customer is pushed to the ground.
"This is ridiculous. I do not want my life in danger for this," said shopper Karen Dietstra. "This is not worth it. This has been a tradition for years. I don't think that I have to get beat up to try to get a sale."
Two shoppers from Grand Rapids did. One of them, 13-year-old Deja McHerron, had to be taken away by ambulance.
"They stumbled over a pregnant lady and Deja was trying to help her get up. And they stumbled over her and they stepped on her back. And now she's going to the hospital," said McHerron's mother, Deborah.
Duretha Arnold-Youngblood, 37, was also taken to the hospital, complaining of an injured knee. Her husband, Johnny Youngblood, took issue with what he calls a lack of security. Youngblood believes Wal-Mart should hire trained uniformed security guards to help bring order to the early-morning holiday crowd and not leave those duties to Wal-Mart associates.
"They didn't have no security at all," said McHerron's sister, Sierra.
"Wal-Mart did not do enough to protect us," Dietstra said.
What went wrong? Managers at the Cascade Wal-Mart are not commenting at this time.
24 Hour News 8 phoned Wal-Mart's corporate offices seeking an answer, but nobody has returned our call.
My husband works for a major electronics retailer. He arrived at work today at 3:45 AM and there was already a line of about 40 or 50 people outside. The line was even longer by the time the store opened at 5 AM.
It was bitterly cold and windy this morning and you couldn't have PAID me to sit outside a store for hours waiting for it to open! But DH did say that the folks in line were orderly and pleasant. They had no problems with shoving or fighting over the early bird deals.
There are too many variations to go through here: plasma, lcd, projection, direct, etc. But if you never saw a true HDTV image, you will be shocked. It is almost like looking through a window and seeing the real thing. EDTV is almost as good and if you view from a little further away the extra resolution becomes less important. Your old fashioned CRT screen still does very well with brightness, contrast and motion compared to plasma , LCD, and projection screens, so if you are happy with it, then why switch? You can get an excellent 32" TV for around $300 to 400. A good EDTV of that size might be triple that and an HDTV might be around 6 or 7 times the cost of the regular tv in the same size. Nothing good to watch anyway.
Wow--thanks. What I get out of your post is that if I buy anything other than a real HDTV...I'd be wasting my money. So when one of my 3 old fashioned tv's die...I'll only go after an HD...thanks...
Nothing sinister IMO; they're trying to make an honest buck on volume via a technique that brings 'em in in droves. I agree however with the post here that the combination of deep discounts and "limited quantities" is borderline morally (it's almost a lie IMO to put something in an ad that applies to only 20 or 30 people out of 1000. I have no problem with the car dealers' "one at this price" strategy because the comparison to the number of potential buyers is far smaller) even though it's well within legal bounds and is a practice long known by general buying public. But it has unwittingly (but less unwittingly with each passing year and incident) contributed to the flared-nostril kill-or-be-killed mentality.
But no, I still put the primary blame on the shoppers / combatants. We see every day in many ways that we really are becoming a more savage society. A tip of the hat to Post 51 which sums it up very nicely both in general terms and with specifics.
No...wish I did....My wife and I both saw it and looked at each other with the same thought..."I bet they stop showing that clip!" Haven't seen it since.
I still get a good giggle out of it....
She pulled that wig on B4 she pulled down her dress....BWAHAHAHAHAHA...
Hey, I was in a Walmart in Woodstock Geogia...waiting for a laptop for my son. I got there at 2:00 AM. I was second in line. Hundreds of people lined up at 5:00 AM some hispanic woman tackeled me and grabbed my hair. I hauled of and smacked her. I had not seen her nor exchanged any words with her. I think I was between her and the computers so she knocked me down but unfortunately for her she tripped over me. I hurt my knee. My line buddy got a computer for me. It was chaos and Walmart darn well should not have allowed it. They took names and gave out vouchers for other merchandise-much safer.
Greed and obesity were the problem.
I should add that the policeman hired for security had to jump on top of the TV's to avoide being trampled, and he pulled that woman off me and tossed her out of the store.
amen.
I stayed my a-- at home and put up a tree.
Guess what. I didn't get trampled or punched by anyone!
There is NO bargain worth enduring that crap!
It must be me but I have no desire to shop on that day. All during December there are sales. I have not done a stitch of Christmas shopping yet, and I slept well last night.
Nope. The DOD set this up as a message to Al Queda, North Korea, and Chavez. You do NOT want to entertain thoughts of ever invading the USA.
LOL! I think it also furthers the argument for forced sterilization.
I hope the cashiers said "Merry Christmas" to these good Christian people out celebrating the holiday!!
How the heck would you like to be cooped up in a Chinese prison with nothing to do all day? WAL-MART has brought meaning to the lives of these millions of otherwise purpose-less folks.
It has also taught them the meaning of "incentive." I suppose you didn't know that if a Chinese Prisoner assembles just 5 pink bikes a day, over a six-month period, he can automatically be removed fromn the Organ Donor Program? All due to WAL-MART, and the intrepid American shoppers, who will apparently risk death to bring the products of CHICOM prison labor back to their double-wides.
Tonight, some lucky Chinaman will receive an extra bowl of rice, or a sweet before bedtime. The reason, you cynical right-wing ideologues: WAL-MART!
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