Black Friday

You’d think that, given what’s going on in Mumbai, people might focus on something other than getting one of those four cheap bigscreen TVs that Wal-Mart uses for bait.  You’d be wrong:

A Wal-Mart worker died after being trampled when hundreds of shoppers smashed through the doors of a Long Island store Friday morning, police and witnesses said.

The 34-year-old 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.

Are you fucking kidding me?

Witnesses said the surging throngs of shoppers knocked the man down. He fell and was stepped on. As he gasped for air, shoppers ran over and around him.

“He was bum-rushed by 200 people,” said Jimmy Overby, 43, a co-worker. “They took the doors off the hinges. He was trampled and killed in front of me. They took me down too…I literally had to fight people off my back.”

The unidentified victim was rushed to an area hospital, where he was pronounced dead at 6:03 a.m., police said.

The cause of death was pending.

Gee, I wonder if Wal-Mart will pay him through the moment of death, or just clock him out as of the time they put him in the ambulance.

Before police shut down the store, eager shoppers streamed past emergency crews as they worked furiously to save the store clerk’s life.

“They were working on him, but you could see he was dead, said Halcyon Alexander, 29. “People were still coming through.”

Only a few stopped.

Speechless.

Comments

[Stephen Rose]

People are beginning to make the connection between "us" and the crisis we are in. This is a horrific acknowledgement of it.

I am linking to this.

Yow.

[Lew Scannon]

This is becoming an annual tradition at Wal-Mart. I believe it was last year, or perhaps the year before that a shopper was trampled to death at a Wal-Mart here in G-Rap. I hope the bargains were worth it.

[The Heretik]

Shopping and working at Walmart may be hazardous to your health.

[actor212]

Not only the poor worker who was standing on the wrong side of the stampede, but a pregnant woman in the same mob miscarried from the trampling.

Also, two workers died in a Toys R Us.

Wal-Mart (and TRU) could have done a better job policing the doors, but let's face facts: that mob scene rushing in is juice advertising, whether you use it to merely pump up your sales staff or manage to get a news crew to cover it. Everybody does it, everybody uses it.

Shame on them, but shame on us for watching.

[mandt]

Death while shopping at Wal*Mart---God Damn it!

[billy]

Goddamnit, I'm going to bed. Wake me up when mankind grows up! Aaaaaargh!

[Lisa]

actor212:

"It's interesting when people die/
give us dirty laundry."