Posted on 12/01/2008 3:04:12 PM PST by Sub-Driver
Top Cop: Wal-Mart May Be To Blame For Worker Death Nassau Detective: Investigation Focusing On Individuals In Crowd And Badly Thought Out Security Protocols ME Confirms: 34-Year-Old Man Died Of Asphyxiation Reporting Lou Young MINEOLA (CBS) ― A top Nassau County police official called it a recipe for disaster.
Wal-Mart advertised the sale, announced supplies were limited and then -- he says -- did little to control the surge of people as they funneled through a single door.
Cops also said. everyone who got into the Valley Stream Wal-Mart when it opened on Friday morning stepped over, around or on Jdimytai Damour.
The medical examiner lists the cause of death to the temp employee as asphyxiation as the result of trampling. In other words, the crowd killed him. But is the crowd primarily responsible? Or does the store bear the brunt of the responsibility?
Nassau County Det. Lt. Michael Fleming said it looks like Wal-Mart made a fatal error here.
"It is clear at this juncture with the investigation still going that in my assessment and our assessment there were not adequate protocols in place," Fleming said.
(Excerpt) Read more at wcbstv.com ...
***this was the only WalMart in America where a sale was advertised but only limited quantities were on hand?***
I was told that our local Walmart had to call the police four times Friday to restore order.
>>this was the only WalMart in America where a sale was advertised but only limited quantities were on hand?<<
Thank you!
Idiot.
It would have taken a line of Police or National Guardsmen to stop those people, and you can imagine the bloody howls of RACISM!! had WalMart taken any actions like that.
Thugocracy behavior in the new Obama-nation.
There is no excuse on any person’s part, period. I’ve seen a few cell phone pics of the crowd, it was huge. Walmart should have called for assistance, but then any person who showed up and saw a crowd that large should have known better. Anyone of them could have called the police for crowd control assistance. We are a nation of cell phones are we not? If one could take pictures of the crowd and mayhem...one could and should have called for help. Any one...any one with a cell phone is responsible...we are our brother’s keeper are we not?
I wondered how long it would take to blame WalMart for this mess....
Many stores (including other Wal marts) have people line up in an orderly fashion and hand out vouchers for the big deals before they open the doors.
Once a mob forms bad things will always happen.
Gimme, gimme, GIMMME!
In my town there used to be an easter egg hunt every year in which there were a number of prize eggs containing REALLY GOOD prizes. The event grew to attract over 1,000 kids (and their parents) and the last I heard there were fist fights and adults shoving kids out of the way. This event is no more.
Then there was the yearly toy drive for underpriiveledged kids. Each kid was guaranteed a good toy (usually a bicycle). As you can imagine, that has turned into a grabfest. I also heard that they caught “volunteers” stealing some of the toys days before the big event.
The Salvation Army looks to be using “homeless” people as bell-ringers around here. No way would I put money in the kettle with some of the folks I’ve seen ringing the bell.
I’ve thought of volunteering to be a bell-ringer at my neighborhood grocery store, which is a Yuppie haven.
They SMASHED the door in.
>>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.”<<
There are how many Walmarts across the country? All of them had this same sale. Same offers, same timing. The difference? This crowd smashed in the doors and killed someone.
Personally, I like what Circuit City did. Hand out numbers, call in, give merchandise, no problem.
And if everyone thinks this is a Walmart problem, our ABC Warehouse had a line of 700 people when it opened at 8. I talked to the first few people there and went home. I wasn’t doing the mad crush thing for a 39.00 DVD player.
I’m with you, Bamma!!! This is the fault only of those in the crowd. We have to be responsible for our own actions.
>>Conertina wire? Electric cattle prods? Machine gun nests?<<
I choose Machine gun nests for $500 Alex.
I’ll take “Russian Knock Out Gas” for $500 Alex.
Yes, I know what it does really, but I’ll take it anyway, Alex.
Walmart will just pay them off....cheaper than litigating it.
“Fault” is generally assigned to the party with the deepest pockets.............
This guy was killed by scumbags who cared more about saving a few bucks than saving a human life. The police should arrest every person who stepped on the victim.
Let me get this right: it was the store’s fault for not making preparations to deal with the grossly dangerous behavior of its customers????????????????????
(rolling eyes)....we can no longer place the blame where it belongs?
Cable News did almost from the start.
Thanks for the tip. I read the Wiki, and the only thing I see that is relevant from a soccer stadium in Britain, filled with thousands of people, to a retail store is this line: “the Taylor Report, named the cause as failure of police control”
Other factors such as overcrowding, consumption of alcohol, fans without tickets, etc. aren't relevant.
So the bottom line is pretty much what I was getting at with my sarcastic (did I forget the tag?) comment. The only thing they could have done differently would have been to hire a platoon of off-duty cops to control the crowd.
Had they done that, however, I'm sure there would have been cries of “racial insensitivity”, “harassment” and “intimidation”.
Truthfully, I think the only thing WalMart should have done differently would have been to tell their employees, “get out of their way”. But then, I don't suppose they had a crystal ball.
Walmart operates hundreds of stores across the country and has done these types of events for years. So, yes, Walmart knows how to handle crowd control. If they did not take the appropriate steps here, then the deceased employees' family will have a very good legal case.
That does not excuse the morons in the crowd, of course.
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