Black Friday Stampede Kills Worker At Wal-Mart

Update: The New York Daily News is now saying that reports of a woman having a miscarriage during a Wal-Mart Black Friday stampede are unfounded.

A 28-year-old pregnant woman was knocked to the floor during the mad rush. She was hospitalized for observation, police said. Early witness accounts that the woman suffered a miscarriage were unfounded, police said.

From The New York Daily News:

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.

Additional reports from NY Newsday say the "34-year-old Wal-Mart worker died Friday morning after he was knocked to the ground after 'a throng of shoppers physically broke down the doors,' pushing their way into the store at the Green Acres Mall in Valley Stream, Nassau police said."

Comments

[Jtt]

moosha

Member Since November 2008

un today too. Get the picture. Walmart S u c k s.

[Not PC]

What exactly is your point? Is it that new members must subscribe to a preordained point of view as defined by Jtt? Yeah, I am new; and I can debate my point of view respectfully on the merits.

I thought socially progressive people champion the rights of free speech. Or is there an added caveat in that you'll respect my rights of free speech only so long as I agree with you, Jtt?

Is there anyone here from the ACLU who will stand up for MY right to respectfully express my opinions when progressives disagree with it and want to silence me through a moderator? Anyone? Anyone? (Cricket sounds coming from the dark of night)...

[McChimp]

Unfortunately, your opinions are raci@lly based and you sound like Hannity, please GTF outta here with that cr@p.

[livesimply]

I totally disagree with you, but you do sound sincere. I hope you will stay with the discussions here since your dialogue seems well reasoned.

[Jtt]

Not PC been posting since... .... Today. What better way to shut down a story and marginalize detractors then by presenting a racial angle.

Corporate bloggers work for campaigns and corporations, if they cant argue a point then they shut down a conversation.

Flag'em.

[TruthaboutIraq]

I guess America is not as rich as it purports to be if the a retailer has to depend on Xmas to become profitable for the year.

[ExPatriot70]

how pathetic this is, I am just glad I moved to Europe where people are still civilized

[TruthaboutIraq]

Same here...........but wait for the people to come back with the football hooligans.­..........­.drunk kids who also deserve to be in jail.

My country does not allow Walmart in here although we have a couple of big box stores you have to have a business tax number to shop there.

I shop online or go to the village to shop.

[racetoinfinity]

Look at a later comment about all the "Wal-Marts" now in Europe, unfortunately.

[ZimboChick]

Europe civilised ha!? Unless being racist is being civilised.

[drec1500Madrid]

What part of Europe are you from....Ever watch the aftermath of a football match...

[TruthaboutIraq]

I already said that a post like yours would come up.

We are talking about everyday people shopping here.

I don't go to football matches in Europe. Too many drunk kids.

[chevyval]

Black Friday is the day when brainwashed Americans run out and and buy things
because they are told to do so by advertisers and the government.

[LiarLiarIraqsOnFire]

If I don't shop til I drop Al Queda will attack us again... at least that's what Emperor George 'The Naked' says.

[who38]

Hear, hear.

[moosha]

RainDance 33: First of all, wherever you're from, I hope it's a place where people value human life over a cheap MP3 players and big screen tv's. Black Friday is a gre edy consumerist ploy to hijack the meaning of Christmas by convincing Americans that the holiday is about buying as much junk as possible for 50% off the day after Thanksgiving instead of what it really means: peace on earth, goodwill toward your fellow human.

This is a day I'm ashamed to be an American. And I hope that the family of the young man who was trampled to death sues WalMart and wins big AND that criminal charges are brought against anyone they can identify who did this.

[TruthaboutIraq]

The village I live in the Netherlands has 2 bakeries, fancy pastry type, a hardware store, smaller dept store, small computer store, supermarket, flower shop and apotheke(p­rescriptio­ns) and a drug store.

all in a lovely setting of cobblestones streets and a 800 year old church with active carrilon.

The shops are busy every day and not busier around Xmas because people buy gifts throught the year for each other.

You couldn't give me a million dollars to move back to the USA.

[VOTER]

Sounds very nice indeed.

In the USA, we have become BIG BOX shoppers and our small town businesses
are gone or about to be lost.

Once young children could go into a local store and the shopkeeper knew them
well enough to ask after the well being of their families.

Today's young shoppers have never known this sense of consumer community.
It is all but gone along with the lovely shops in small towns.
Today's large supermarket has replaced the local bakery, butcher shop, photo
shop, florist and many others. Also, lost is the quality of goods.

[who38]

And drugs and prostitution are legal.

[gwhizz]

I haven't seen anyone offer you anything to move back. I wonder why?

[KDay]

This happens every year. Many more stories all over the country do not get reported. And to the idiots, it's not a racial event,all races take part in this madness. The tradegy is the death,so it gets national news, but plenty of people got trampled all over the country and were lucky they didn't die,even those hospitalized. Mt local news showed plenty of people knocked down and stepped on.

[Kevbo68]

Disgusting animals. While it wasn't inconceivable to me that this could happen, it's still simply shocking that it finally did. Wal-Mart cultivates short-sighted thinking by communities and by shoppers who sell their town's and their own souls for great deals. Wal-Mart allows consumers and communities to cut their own throats by destroying downtowns and sending the jobs that once belonged to Wal-Mart shoppers overseas to those who make the goods on Wal-Mart shelves.

To the savages involved in this incident:
I hope your family enjoys the TV you killed a man to obtain. I also hope the figurative blood on your hands doesn't make it difficult for you to use the new TV's remote.

To Wal-Mart:
I hope you finally understand the frenzy and greed you provoke with your sales tactics. I hope a court rules you're just as responsible for an innocent man's death as those who trampled upon him. You unleashed packs of wild animals in the name of profits. Happy holidays.

[RainDance33]

I'm not from the US so could someone please explain to me what is behind the 'Black Friday' shopping theme?

[dandypuddin]

It is the day that retailers get out of the red and go into the black (profit). From the day after Thanksgiving through Christmas is when retailers make all the profit they are going to see for the year. This year they are quaking in their boots.

[BuckeyeGal]

It's the day the retailers start to make a profit (the bottom line gets 'in the black') because of the holiday season buying frenzy.
Thanksgiving Day always falls on a Thursday, and lots of people have the next day off, so they go shopping.

[apoyo]

Guess it has to do with the one shopping day that stores expect will get them in the black (profit) as opposed to being in the red (debt),

[BannedInBoston]

I think that's it. It's confusing, because "black" days on Wall Street refer to days when the market crashed. Thus for stores, "Black Fridfay" = good; for the finance industry "black (any day)" = BAD.

[livesimply]

It is when mobs of people go out to get all the good sales because many of the businesses at the malls have great deals. It is the official first day of the Christmas shopping season. Personally, I prefer staying away from mobs so I (like many others) avoid malls that day.

[livesimply]

And if you shop at a place like Walmart...­..definite­ly stay away that day.

[ikesambobby]

Christmas is totally out of control. This is not what it's supposed to be about!

[MCope]

"The mind is on fire. Ideas are on fire. Consciousness in the mind is on fire. Contact with the mind is on fire. And whatever arises in dependence on contact with the mind -- experienced as pleasure, pain or neither-pl­easure-nor­-pain -- that too is on fire. On fire with what? On fire with the fire of desire, the fire of aversion, the fire of delusion. On fire, I say, with birth, aging and death, with sorrows, lamentations, pains, distresses, and despairs."

The Fire Sermon – Gautama Buddha, ca. 250 BC

[livesimply]

I love you.

[2cntswrth]

This is madness! Trampling over and killing someone to get into a store to buy cheap junk made overseas where American jobs have been shifted causing our unemployment roles to increase to all time levels and our buying power so low that WalMart becomes THE only place some people feel they can afford to shop. How much crazier can this cycle get? The truth is that whatever it was everyone barnstormed the doors for will probably be replenished next week after their inventories are automatically recalculated following their sales. Not only that---but WalMart isn't going to run out of JUNK!!!! I hope the hell they catch the very people who knocked this person down and actually stepped on him. As ruthless as Walmart is---it really isn't the store's fault. It's the nuts who did this!

[uclafan]

Isn't that a picture of shoppers at a Target store? Target has red shopping carts, Walmart has silver or blue...

[whit4brains]

Yes. I noticed that too. Plus the employer is wearing that red polo and khaki pants.

[NoblesseOblige]

This would never happen at Costco.

[petecook5]

I worked retail for 4 years in college and dreaded this day and the day after xmas. I haven't gone out shopping on the day after either holiday since.

The truth is...THERE IS NO DEAL WORTH GETTING OUT IN THOSE CROWDS FOR. The "doorbuster" items are either low on quality or non-existent on quantity. I hope this man's family sues the h e ll out of wal mart for negligence.

[McChimp]

And the ironic thing is that in a few weeks, Walmart and all the other retailers will be BEGGING people to buy their extra merchandise when people are S**T BROKE from all the spending they did today and in the days leading up to Christmas. The American people need to quit being brainless SHEEP and REALIZE they are being used to fill the pockets of the richest!!! Christmas should be about spending time with loved ones, not nonmaterial junk that you won't be using a year from now.

[who38]

The term, "doorbuster" says it all; doesn't it? Guess those shoppers were doing just what was planned by the Wal-Mart marketing staff.

[Ty90]

Stop trying to trash walmart because of the people that caused the mans death.

Walmart is a great place to shop because of their low prices. They are very
affordable on any given day really, not just black Friday.

Anyway, the idiots that acted like animals to get into walmart are the ones to blame,
this could have happened ANYWHERE,so get over that part of it.

[JuniorIsaac]

Oh, please. They are affordable because of so many people they screw over. I drive an hour out of the way just to avoid shopping at walmart. I buy my clothes at Salvation Army and my food from Woodmans. And you are right, it can happen anywhere. But seeing as walmart is the biggest bully on the block, the others have to match up or get wiped out.