Black Friday Madness: Stampede Kills Man, Pregnant Woman Miscarries in Valley Stream Walmart

Video:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/27955331#27955331


Cops hunt Wal-Mart shoppers after worker dies
Charges possible after Black Friday crowd tramples employee at N.Y. store
The Associated Press
updated 2:51 a.m. PT, Sat., Nov. 29, 2008

NEW YORK - Police were reviewing video from surveillance cameras in an attempt to identify who trampled to death a Wal-Mart worker after a crowd of post-Thanksgiving shoppers burst through the doors at a suburban store and knocked him down.

Criminal charges were possible, but identifying individual shoppers in Friday's video may prove difficult, said Detective Lt. Michael Fleming, a Nassau County police spokesman.

Other workers were trampled as they tried to rescue the man, and customers stepped over him and became irate when officials said the store was closing because of the death, police and witnesses said.

At least four other people, including a woman who was eight months pregnant, were taken to hospitals for observation or minor injuries. The store in Valley Stream on Long Island closed for several hours before reopening.

Police said about 2,000 people were gathered outside the Wal-Mart doors before its 5 a.m. opening at a mall about 20 miles east of Manhattan. The impatient crowd knocked the employee, identified by police as Jdimytai Damour, to the ground as he opened the doors, leaving a metal portion of the frame crumpled like an accordion.

"This crowd was out of control," Fleming said. He described the scene as "utter chaos," and said the store didn't have enough security.

Dozens of store employees trying to fight their way out to help Damour were also getting trampled by the crowd, Fleming said. Shoppers stepped over the man on the ground and streamed into the store.

Damour, 34, of Queens, was taken to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead around 6 a.m., police said. The exact cause of death has not been determined.'

'Savages'
A 28-year-old pregnant woman was taken to a hospital, where she and the baby were reported to be OK, said police Sgt. Anthony Repalone.

Kimberly Cribbs, who witnessed the stampede, said shoppers were acting like "savages."

"When they were saying they had to leave, that an employee got killed, people were yelling `I've been on line since yesterday morning,'" she said. "They kept shopping."

Wal-Mart Stores Inc., based in Bentonville, Ark., called the incident a "tragic situation" and said the employee came from a temporary agency and was doing maintenance work at the store. It said it tried to prepare for the crowd by adding staffers and outside security workers, putting up barricades and consulting police.


"Despite all of our precautions, this unfortunate event occurred," senior Vice President Hank Mullany said in a statement. "Our thoughts and prayers go out to the families of those impacted."

A woman reported being trampled by overeager customers at a Wal-Mart opening Friday in Farmingdale, about 15 miles east of Valley Stream, Suffolk County police said. She suffered minor injuries, but finished shopping before filling the report, police said.

Shoppers around the country line up early outside stores on the day after Thanksgiving in the annual bargain-hunting ritual known as Black Friday. It got that name because it has historically been the day when stores broke into profitability for the full year.

Items on sale at the Valley Stream Wal-Mart included a Samsung 50-inch Plasma HDTV for $798, a Bissel Compact Upright Vacuum for $28, a Samsung 10.2 megapixel digital camera for $69 and DVDs such as "The Incredible Hulk" for $9.

URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27955316/

wal-mart defends its actions, saying that they had extra security on hand. But nobody is saying how many security people and what they did. Wal-mart is very proactive about trying to catch shoplifters, and I have no doubt that they had extra people scheduled to sit in the monitor room and to nab suspects on the floor, but that has nothing to do with controlling the crowds gathering outside for the opening. There is no account of any wal-mart employee or contractor doing anything to control the crowds. There is however a police account that they came by and noticed an out of control crowd, tried to do something about it, but were called away to deal with crowds at other locations.

wal mart didnt have security here in las vegas..

i doubt they did there and are just covering their asses.

see any on the videos? ??

What I don't understand is why these retailers haven't made the connection between these low cost loss leader sales events and the time the store opens. They create their own pressure cooker by building up pent up anticipation at the front doors before it finally gets released when the doors open.

It's a no brainer to see that all they need do is schedule the starting time of the event for a couple hours after the store opens to allow the crowd to trickle in rather than bust in as an overwhelming surge.

no, but accounts are that wal-mart had abundant security outside this store this morning, which is more ass covering.

exactly!

i think they like the "hype" generated though, dont you?

wow look at that crowd in front of best buy!

*hype ensues*

you miss the marketing plan....the idea is to get the people to come to your store first, with claims of great bargains, and to then convince them to buy stuff that is profitable while they are there. Having the sale start ofter stores have been open a few hours (and thus many have been shopping a few hours) does not accomplish the goal. Also, nobody is going to voluntarily start their sales hours after the competitors do....that certainly is a recipe to come in last in the struggle to sell crap.

Video of people fighting for the last Xbox in a Walmart on Black Friday.

Unless you have been engaged in litigation with Walmart, you are not as familiar (superficially or otherwise) with their strategy towards torts as I am.

They do not readily settle such claims.

They may settle this one if they believe they can reach an economically advantageous resolution, but they are not going to be swayed by public opinions, such as your own,

This is a company that has very successfully weathered a concerted, ongoing attack by Liberals, bound and determined to peg it as a force of evil in America. They are not about to allow such voices to determine whether or not they are legally liable for the tragic death of their employee.

In any case, the family of the deceased employee, or his estate, will have a difficult time getting past the Exclusive Remedy doctrine in NY which holds that Workers Compensation is the only remedy for the injury or death of an employee in the scope of his or her employment.

In order to overcome the Exclusive Remedy doctrine, the family or his estate will have to prove Walmark guilty of gross negilence. Jurys, unfortunately, are capable of rendering any sort of verdict they feel will support the outcome they desire, but the facts of this case, as I have seen so far, do not, at all, support a finding of gross negligence.

You are not only being naive, you are are demonstrating ignorance.

Walmart does not need to settle a suit with the deceased's family to indicate compassion.

I feel certain they have already reached out to the family not only with condolences but an offer of compensation. The offer will not make the family independently wealthy, but it will not be an insulting token either. If the family rejects the offer and sues, all compassionate considerations will be off the table, and rightly so.

Your is an attitude which has helped to undermine our tort system. Suits are not about emotional issues such as compassion or revenge. The Plaintiff's Bar, for obvious reasons, endeavors (and frequently succeeds in making them so) but Common Law is common sense and very specifically focused on legal liability, not largess

When I posted, I didn't know all that. So, reconsidering.

Adds.. the people in front may have been essentially berserk fiends but they also have a throng in back of them pushing.

So, what, I don't know, but surely others have orchestrated admission to events. That all costs money, naturally.

I probably still put it to WalMart not thinking far enough in their human behavior appreciation, or in their legal dens. But I'm not exonerating the shoppers, who, after all, are not actually sheep.

http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20071103/news_1b3retail.html

so Walmart spends all this money advertising a ridiculously low priced tv, its door buster, and has three to actually sell. We don't think that customers know that getting a product at the advertised rate is going to require being at the front of the line, and fighting off others who want it??? Walmart sets up this contrived situation and then when all hell brakes loose they are not responsible???

That is pure Bullshit.

http://www.workerscompensation.com/compnewsnetwork/blogwire/walmart_criminally_responsible_for_quot.html

if true, this is a travesty of justice.

I guest the bean counters and lawyers at walmart have been on top of this all along...if someone gets hurt in the black friday "doorbuster" sale who cares, Walmart has already shed criminal liabilty. And the public will blaim the shoppers who they encouraged to be agressive in the "shopping frenzy".....and the cash redgistars will sing.....

great plan!

Just look at the video. No wonder they call it "black" Friday....

Same thing happened here three years ago - nobody got killed, but the local Wally World hit the national news when the chimps rioted.

They're protected now. O-boy is gonna take care of them and pay their mortgages AND their Wal-Mart VISA bills.

If public opinion is very sympathetic to an individual, it stands to reason that the jury might also feel the same way. Thusly, it is a matter of legal strategy that they do take into account. Any sound legal strategy should.

Sometimes, they may be right, but if the victim is sympathetic enough they lose.



I've said as much myself, and have never said this is a case of gross negligence. And as you yourself note, this isn't the standard by which such liability is always determined.



There are a lot of people here who like to accuse others of ignorance to make themselves look good, but without any specific ignorance in mind. A rhetorical flourish if you will.

So why don't you point out the specific fact I am ignorant of? Because I think this is more of your self-aggrandizing hot air.



I agree with this. I think they are best served by offering a 6-figure sum preemptively.



What attitude? You are making stuff up again. I don't think the family of the deceased should sue Walmart at all, and if they do I don't think they should win. I think the US is ridiculously litigious and that it hurts everyone.

Your knee is jerking again, by assuming attitudes and positions I do not have. I am not making the case for Walmart's legal liability but that doesn't mean I don't think Walmart should try to settle, or that it would be great legal strategy for Walmart to litigate.

Of course, if the family rejects compensation in hopes of holding out for a sum that can only be justified as punitive Walmart will have little choice but to fight it, but I think it's in their best interests to avoid it and offer compensation regardless of their liability.



And legal liability is subjectively interpreted, often influenced by emotion.

However, I do wonder if the economic crisis has made people behave with greater emotion and less control this year?

Have people died in such crushes in the USA before?

Probably, as a quick answer, dlowan. re crush history.



Whether this minute's history works people up to this extent, I'm thinking, I don't know - people are in a mess, and those that are, are probably not the ones at some store door. They, we, are still absorbing. But that's my view.

So, what am I on about ... maybe that the people most socked by recent problems are not the ones trying to get goods at a christmas sale, presumeably to resell.

Hey, I just finished reading a Primo Levi market primer..

Possibly...and I am not especially wedded to this theory...but I imagine a lot of people have just, or are expecting to, lose their jobs, and still wanting to have a christmas, and especially panicked.


But, who knows, mobs and crushes happen everywhere.

I gather it can be pretty scary at the post-christmas sales here...(I only went once and never again). I have a memory that the practice of having one only item at a ridiculously low price in each department, which went to the first person to grab it, was stopped, because it led to crazy behaviour.



I am horrified that people knew someone had died and mobbed on regardless....or perhaps those at the back had not heard, and continued to press others forward?