How crazy are people on Black Friday? Are the deals so good that they would trample someone to death? Here's a tragic Wal-Mart stampede that left one worker dead and got several people (including a pregnant woman) injured:
The Black Friday stampede plunged the Valley Stream outlet into chaos, knocking several employees to the ground and sending others scurrying atop vending machines to avoid the horde. [...]
"He was bum-rushed by 200 people," said Wal-Mart worker Jimmy Overby, 43. "They took the doors off the hinges. He was trampled and killed in front of me. "They took me down, too ... I didn't know if I was going to live through it. I literally had to fight people off my back," Overby said.
Damour, a temporary maintenance worker from Jamaica, Queens, was gasping for air as shoppers continued to surge into the store after its 5 a.m. opening, witnesses said.
Even officers who arrived to perform CPR on the trampled worker were stepped on by wild-eyed shoppers streaming inside, a cop at the scene said.
"They pushed him down and walked all over him," Damour's sobbing sister, Danielle, 41, said. "How could these people do that?
If that's not bad enough, even after being told that someone was killed, they kept on shopping!
Link (with video tape of the stampede)
(Photo: Augustine for The Daily News)
The whole point was to slow up the competition. It was a shame that the old guy I tripped got killed by some idiots behind me, but, hey, I saved $50 on that Xbox.
"For what does it profit a man, that he gain the world but lose his soul?" Matthew 16:26
--TwoDragons
I don't blame the Walmart. How on earth were they supposed to know stupid ass soulless morons would do something like that.
I've read this story in several places and it makes me angrier every time I do.
Lindsay, it makes absolutely no sense to condemn all of NJ and NY. I'm from NYC and there are just as many good people there as anywhere else. It's the mentality and depravity of the specific group that was at that Walmart that's to blame - not an entire region.
Something has to be done to prevent this from happening again.
Auto-Door openers, discourage morning rushes, something.
Those doors should have been monitored by a team of licensed Security Guards
Has nobody heard of the new CPR?
consumer whores
The sad fact remains however, that the people who killed that poor soul, have been conditioned by the media to behave this way since birth. Consumer Pigs run rampant.
Yeah, that video was first of all, not a video of the stampede, but secondly, filled with the kind of gutless commentary I equate with those who feel like documentarians just because they have a cameraphone. "Nobody wanna touch his lips." Gimme a break. And while your at it, try to actually get the subject in the frame, not that guy's GoreTex jacket.
Muggle.
Another interesting point in this post is the video : with the generalization of cam-cellphones, the Global Village is thriving. Sad, but amazing video.
But I digress, I have to respectfully disagree with Christophe, this is indicative of a problem with American consumer and greed oriented culture encouraged by the likes of wal mart and other corporations. I'm not badmouthing my America yet at the same time I'm not viewing it through rose colored glasses and think other cultures are beneath us. Certainly there are other countries that are consumer driven but can anyone prove to me that it approaches anywhere near the level of insanity in America? Where else do you see people act like animals in wanting goods they can't even afford. When you read about riots in other countries it usually involves shortage of food, or crime, or government, or things that, you know, truly make a difference between life and death, not a 42 inch plasma screen t.v. Rioting and fighting and killing over a nintendo or a tickle me elmo is definitely not a natural part of human nature, certainly not a part of what's supposed to be the most 'advanced' and 'progressive' nations in the world.
And this kind of behavior is hardly recent, growing up in the early 80's and all those toy fads and crazes, shoppers were as ruthless and violent back then as now. I think it is rather pure luck that more people have not died all these years.
In Michigan, we actually form orderly lines to get in to the store. Apparently these shoppers are too stupid.
From a different Wal-Mart, I saw an interview with a mother complaining that the store was out of the mp3 player she wanted. She started complaining that because the economy is so bad, she had to have bargains to meet her kids' "needs".
Yes, I have heard all about those poor kids around the world who have to go without mp3 players. What an idiot.
I send prayers and love to the family and loved ones.
for others, get back to the true meaning of CHRISTmas... celebrate the true gift of salvation.
for those who don't believe, give time and effort to your family instead of things, or give to others who don't have, they are in your own community, in other countries, maybe in your own family.
bless the world.
Either way, this whole thing is sick, sad, and I agree that everyone in that stampede should be arrested and charged. There is no excuse for this sort of behavior anywhere in the world.
When I read this story back on Friday, it made me re-think the whole Christmas tradition of buying cheap crap and foisting it off on family and friends. What about making people meals, or something? Or making donations in friend's names to charity? (Of course I say this as a guy who bought his girlfriend an iPod and some DVDs.)
I understand people want a bargain but...
As for the Toys R Us thing, I am as big a gun nut as the next Southern white male, but why was anybody in a toy store with their loaded gun??
This took place in Texas, by the way, y'all.
The whole point was to slow up the competition. It was a shame that the old guy I tripped got killed by some idiots behind me, but, hey, I saved $50 on that Xbox."
...so if you saved $50 on a gaming console, that's all that matters to you, and these people are just 'idiots'? They're more that that - it's just plain evil and you aren't any better. You have to at least show some respect for this man. He was a person with a family, goals, and most importantly, a life. Now it's ruined because some insane people want to get good deals on materialistic things.
How can you go about shopping knowing that an employee has just been killed? Sickening.
But in a way it's very understandable, and not just limited to the US. I saw similar feeding frenzies while visiting Africa, among little kids no less. They nearly trampled me and other kids trying to get candy. Greed does awful things to people, no matter where they are.
We went to Italy last year, and believe me, we saw our fair share of rude, crazy freakin Italians. Same when we went to France, same when we went to Germany.
Anyway... after saying that, we really need to stop this Black Friday BS.
We should just stop listening. And I say WE, because this is our society. The world is our society, and we should quit pointing fingers and start saying no to letting this kind of BS run our lives.
I don't care where you live, you are part of this grand society as well. We are all to blame. If you want to get a look at the roots of this kind of behavior and why it's been coming for a while, read this:
http://theniftythrifty.blogspot.com/2008/01/stuff-cant-live-with-it-cant-throw-it.html
Thank got we've some pictures of the poor guy dying. Isn't it nice to watch that video and get upset about it? Okay, the viewpoint isn't exactly the best one, it would have been better to see a closeup of him. Maybe there would have been even some blood visible?
Sarcastic? Why, thats just the everyday-capitalism you do all the time over there in gods own country.
Have fun, greetings from a part pf the world where we don't die from shopping people...