Posted on 11/28/2008 7:02:13 AM PST by GQuagmire
A worker died after being trampled and a woman miscarried when hundreds of shoppers smashed through the doors of a Long Island Wal-Mart Friday morning, witnesses said.
The unidentified worker, employed as an overnight stock clerk, tried to hold back the unruly crowds just after the Valley Stream store opened at 5 a.m.
(Excerpt) Read more at . ...
Seesh, I hope you don’t have kids. If you do I hope I never have the misfortune to run into the little snot nosed bas@@@ds.
This could happen to any crowd. And it isn’t related to any malignancy or disorder. Years ago I was in a big tight crowd behind the grandstands where the betting windows were. Just the normal, slow push to the exits compacted the section of the crowd I was in, and it got very scary for about 10 seconds. All it takes is for one or two people to trip, fall, or panic in some way and the noise ignites the crowd.
How far along was the woman who suffered the miscarriage in the melee?
Just heartbreaking.
>>The fact is that when a child receives a gift, it belongs to them, not the parents. <<
LOLOLOL!!!!
You must be a kid. If not, your kids are part of the problem. Wait until little privleged Suzy tells you that SHE owns her room and the stash of dope you just found in there. Or maybe you’ll give her those privacy rights.
Wait until she cracks up the car you’ve bought her and they come after you for the damages.
Take it to court. NOTHING belongs to a child except in a liberals mind. You’ll find that out quick enough.
And guess what? Life isn’t fair either. Worrying about little Suzy’s ego has gotten us into the problems we have.
>>If you want to teach your kids that way, please keep them away from mine who are being taught values.<<
I’m sure my kids would want nothing to do with your spoiled children anyway. They prefer to hang with the girls that work with them at Gleaner’s Food Bank. Thanks.
Article doesn’t say..
No that’s not the fact. Everything given to child is the property of the parents — that’s the facts. Go look it up!
It is, and I also think she was a d*mn fool to put her child in that situation myself.
Look, I know this is horrible, and I feel horrible for the clerk and his family.
And yet, I still can’t banish the thought of a very young and very terrified Kevin Bacon, wearing civvies and a Wal-Mart vest instead of Army ROTC green, screaming “REMAIN CALM!! ALL IS WELL!!”
Getting caught unexpectedly in a mob is one thing. This was planned though. No one was forced to get out of their cars and rush the doors. After thinking about it I agree. Everyone in that crowd should be charged.
My son owned the things we gave him but we made sure he was old enough to have those toys to begin with. We also held back money so he knew how to save for the larger things he wanted. With that money, he bought a remote control car that cost hundreds of dollars.
There was one time that I had failed him and I’m very lucky he doesn’t remember it. He won a hundred dollars when he was ten years old. He wanted a bike so we took him to the toy store and he picked one out. I disagreed with his purchase because the bike was too small for him. I chose one that fit him so he could ride if for a longer time as he grew.
He hated that bike and I hardly saw him ride it. He was more adult than I was and I learned a big lesson.
There was also something else he did. When he had too many toys given by others that he no longer played with, the wife had a garage sale. My son sold his old toys at his prices.
I forgot to add in my post that the compacted crowd that I was in was at the Kentucky Derby. It was in an area of wealthier fans, so no cheap and easy stereotype can be applied.
I suspect that there will now be laws passed regulating how companies conduct “Black Friday.”
You know, people used to wait in line in Communist countries to get stuff, because they had no choice. Now here in the States, people choose to stand in line. Crazy.
True — I was in two crushes at 70’s era rock concerts. In one I was almost pinned against the wall, but I braced against the wall with my mighty legs and pushed back to create a open zone at the wall for those with me. The second time was a lesser crush mid crowd during which some sleazebag tried to lift my wallet, only to have his wrist grabbed and his thumb bent back — which I would have taken all the way except that the sleaze being quick of hand, deftly parried and rolled away into flow of the crowd soup.
Every year, each of my children are to pick 10 things out of the toy box to give to charity before Christmas.
Sometimes that’s hard and I cut them a break to chose one item together.
They also save all through the year to give food at our Advent project. This year each of them saved enough from their allowance to give a huge bag of beans AND rice. Each!
About the only time I find myself in crowds is in public transit settings. I ride the NYC subways to/from work everyday, and commute to Pennsylvania by train every weekend. If trains are backed up or delayed, you find yourself on a platform or in a large station waiting area with a packed crowd. And all it would take is one spark, as you said.
A few months after 9/11, I found myself trying to get on a train at Penn Station/NYC when due to some scheduling snafu another train was unloading on the other side of the same platform, and due to some oversight, all the escalators were running down — there are also a few staircases, but it’s really tight even with one train unloading, no train loading and the escalators running 1/2 up and 1/2 down. Usually they’re pretty efficient about platform scheduling and setting the esecalators to run the correct way for the platform-use-of-the-moment, but this situation was a real mess. I decided it was worth risking missing my train to go back upstairs and notify the police/soldiers at the main security desk that this was a disaster waiting to happen. As I put it to the officer I reported it to, all it would take is one person to yell “Mom!” and one other person to be sure s/he heard “Bomb!” We’re talking over a thousand people crammed on a platform, with very few routes to get upstairs and out, and in a panic people WOULD try to run up the nearest stair or escalator, even if it was an escalator running down and already packed with people facing downward. I’m happy to say that my report was taken seriously and the officer immediately picked up the phone to notify station personnel.
We’re always safest when we’re alert to danger, and I’m afraid these special retail events draw crowds of people who are almost exclusively focused on getting that must-have electronic gadget for a super-low price.
A Freepmail to me from a long time honorable freeper who chooses to remain anonymous due to the subject matter...
I used to work in this area Valley Stream before I had my baby in 1992. It is a very heavy black area, yes whites lived and raised their kids in the area but the influx of punks from nearby Queens with no attachment to the community, who could not be schooled in the town also, had ruined the area as far back as the 80’s.
I was assualted once for trying to stop a shoplifter. It is very close to the Queens border. The mall security guards were all black and could not give a crap if the victim was white back then and the perp was black. We were also robbed doing a bank deposit. After that robbery I never allowed another outdoor deposit period, my company threatened me but I stuck to my guns for the protection of my employees.
I actually felt safer working in Midtown Manhattan a few months earlier pre Guiliani as mayor if you can believe that. I witnessed insane stuff in NYC but no blatent attempt at harm. NYC was horrible back then but for the most part if you just did your business you were ok.;
This is also the area where many years ago a gunman, local gang member killed someone in a packed movie theatre..this was I think about a year before I had my baby.
I know there can be crime anywhere however this mob mentality to get a stupid bargain of I dont know what as I saw the Walmart Black Friday ad is just INSANE. There was nothing important to buy...just a bunch of unneeded crap.
The people involved in this crap probably are not making their rent and obligations, the are hoping for the great promised change to take place on Jan 20, 2009.
There was nothing in Walmarts Black Friday ad that was worth waiting on line and being a participant in a stampede at such an early hour. The people involved I can almost attest have no passion for the Thanksgiving celebration either...Yes I know retail sucks but it really sucks when you have crime infested maggots all the time.
I adopted that same shopping policy a number of years ago after a relative coaxed me into going with her to an early morning after Thanksgiving sale. I understand how it happened that this poor man was trampled to death, and the young woman miscarried her baby. There isn’t an item on earth worth the chaos I experienced that day, and it was apparently much less chaotic than at this Long Island Wal-Mart.
As a matter of fact, I didn’t even buy anything that morning, and most, if not all, of the items that interested me were still on sale at the same price later in the day and the days following.
Re: your brother’s kids, I’d bet that is repeated in most families across this country. I know it’s the case with my sister’s grandkids and with my S-I-L’s grandkids. It’s maddening.
When poverty in the U.S. is mentioned, I say it is a poverty of want rather than a poverty of need when it comes to material things, in most cases. They see it - they want it...whether or not they need it, and they never get enough to keep them from wanting more.
My charity days are over except for donating to the NRA. We’re going to need the help for the next four years.
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