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.
Friggin' greedy idiots had nothing to do with it...
Black Fri. Walmart Sitrep.
Oh shxx, here come Swindel n Cheeetum, attys at extortion....
My dad used to say it was the same type of chaos at Gimbel's in Milwaukee when there was a sale on housecoats about 50 years ago.
You unlock the doors with hundreds of people waiting on the other side and there's only one possible outcome.
Hey!! Find another term!!
I'd say Excessive Greed and a case of Assholio.
Maybe we can federalize Black Friday security and get the Dept of Homeland Security to professionalize, by federalizing, thousands of otherwise unemployable people on the taxpayer dime.
I heard it was because of all the $300 laptops they were selling cheap.
If people behaved themselves there wouldn't be any need for security. Sheesh.
How about taking responsibility for your OWN actions, honey? It is not Wal-Mart's "responsibility" to keep its customers from behaving like a bunch of in-bred savages.
I guess civil decorm is now no longer expected. People are now just naturally idiots and it is now the responsibility of others to control them...or as they use the term...." provide security"...
Security from what? How can you secure a public that has no sense of decency? When did it become nessesary for stores to provide security for shoppers to keep them from hurting each other. Usually it is to prevent shoplifting or other crimes. Just another low in American history.
Of course. It wouldnt do any good to sue the greedy animals that knocked them down, so there has to be some way to blame the store. Disgusting.
I don't believe in evolution, but people who go shopping at 5 in the morning the day after Thanksgiving are the best argument I've heard for proof of a "missing link".
Bush didn't send in FEMA.
Greed is the cause.
And a nationwide retailer orgy chock full of bait and switch adverising that could be done at any time of year.
bttt!!
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