Okay, You Be The Judge - Who Is At Fault Here, And How Much, Re: Wal-Mart Death

[THUNDER HANDS]

I'll give a variety of options.

[sandnsea]

1. I don't think we have verified facts yet

Do we have the number of security staff on duty, a security strategy, bull horn placement, safety procedures, etc.? I don't mean what the procedures were when you worked at Walmart, but what the procedures and circumstances were in that store, today. Until we have the actual facts, we don't know how much blame to place where.

You can give a good educated guess, be accurately suspicious, but still not be able to know for certain. Not enough information yet.

[THUNDER HANDS]

3. when I worked there

wal-mart would hire one or two extra security guards during the holidays, in addition to their normally staffed LP office, which had about three or four people in it, but they focus on shoplifters, not crowd control.

[sandnsea]

5. Yes but we don't know about today

or that store today. We don't know if their policies are better or worse. We don't know if the store manager decided to shuffle the crew around to have more at the front door, or shuffled people away from the front door. We just don't know yet.

[orleans]

6. i would bet they "cut the payroll" and didn't hire the extra help

i was at the grocery store earlier this week--they were jammed. the parking lot was so fucking bad the day or two before that i drove through and drove back home. on the day i did go into the store i was up at the service desk and this employee was asking another if he could get some stock people to come up to the front and bag. the other guy said he didn't have any extra stock people. i asked if they were hiring and the guy told me they were cutting the payroll. the girl who checked me out told me that everyone's hours have been cut down in order to meet the payroll. i thought what a load of crap--they are meeting the payroll just fine. maybe profits are down? now there is the reason to cut the payroll.

well, walmart's profits are down too. i would be surprised if they had the security on hand for their "blitz"

[ColbertWatcher]

12. "Not enough information yet." True, but let's look at what we do know ...

Here's an ad for Wal-Mart's Black Friday promotions:



Note the special store hours and the "Gifts worth waking for" note.

Here's a link to a video of a Wal-Mart in Elk City, Oklahoma, where only one person (not a uniformed security guard) opens the door (November 28, 2008): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jw18_16AGv4 (forward ahead to 2:55 or so)

Here's a video for a Wal-Mart Black Friday in 2006: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eyh3egPw7uY

Here's a video for a Wal-Mart Black Friday in 2007: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X3eUiMHtPgQ

Oh, and here's some historical perspective from YouTube: November 28, 2008 is the 25th Anniversary of Cabbage Patch mania http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ajlTIMBbdTg

[sandnsea]

15. Is that the company policies and procedures?

I don't see any rules in your picture.

We don't have them. What you see on a video isn't necessarily all that is going on. There are no verified facts yet.

[ColbertWatcher]

17. "There are no verified facts yet." Sure, but the videos show that it's happened before.

How could they not know.

Also, please check out this series of photos ... http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=4554275&mesg_id=4554814

(It's on another DU thread and I'm too lazy to copy/paste all the code)

[hendo]

29. So, i checked out your link

this looks the same as any other Black Friday ad.

[madinmaryland]

2. A couple of points.

First, I believe that Wal-Mart is culpable for the employees death for not providing the proper protection. OTOH, though, there was only one store out of thousands that this happened at.

Secondly, what about the culpability of the people bull-rushing the store to buy stuff.

To me, if sounds like shared responsibility between the store management and the customers.

It still pisses me off that people act like such assholes to go grubbing after what big corpo's want them to. WAKE UP FOOLS!

[THUNDER HANDS]

4. one store out of thousands that someone got killed at

I bet you there were dozens where people were injured that didn't make the news.

[hendo]

30. don't forget the shooting

in a Toys R' US.

[CitizenPatriot]

25. me, too. It's so sad and they don't even realize how they're being

played.

We don't need all of this CRAP. Just say NO.

It's like crack for grown ups.

[Believing Is Art]

7. More complicated than that

Black Friday has become so sensationalistic and created such a mob mentality that it was only a matter of time before something like this happened. They should spread the sales out over a week or more. If stores are worried about their bottom line or running out of product, then they don't have to knock off as much on some items. Who really *needs* a 32'' LCD TV for $388? Why not just mark it down to, like, $549, and have it on sale for a week instead of a few hours? And instead of just marking down the lower-end items, they could mark down some of the higher-ends as well, or have some conditional sales - buy this $1200 TV and get 15% off up to $200 of groceries, or something like that. Longer sale times would get more people in their stores for longer periods. And sales on big ticket items which come with deals in other departments would probably bring in customers that wouldn't usually shop at stores like Wal-Mart. It's not as flashy as the Black Friday doorbuster deals, but they could probably generate as much if not more revenue and keep their employees safe.

[Gemini Cat]

8. Walmart 100%.

What did they (walmart) expect would eventually happen?
Excited mobs do these sort of things.
I don't blame the mob, they probably had no idea someone had fallen.

[Breeze54]

9. Wal-Mart Is 100% At Fault.... Period!!

:kick: & Recommended

[Sebastian Doyle]

10. The greedy corporate mentality (including the media) encourages this sick mentality

and WalMart is one of the worst examples of corporate greed.

[ColbertWatcher]

13. But ...

... how do we stop it? http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=4554586&mesg_id=4554586

[Sebastian Doyle]

14. Well, ordinarily I would say boycott.

But I've already refused to set foot in a WalMart for years now, so they wouldn't be losing any money from me that way.

People just have to reject the whole materialism hype of the whole corporate Xmas thing. My family came to the unanimous agreement that we're skipping the whole commercialism thing this year. Which isn't such a tough decision when several of your relatives are either unemployed, underemployed, or retired.

I imagine that over the next few days, we'll hear reports coming in that this so called "Black Friday" didn't turn out that way for a lot of retail chains, and in addition to the Circuit City and Linens & Things chains which have already announced their impending doom, other retail chains that were counting on Xmas hysteria to keep them afloat will announce that they too will cease to be.

And while I won't mourn the loss of some of those stores, it could well mean a lot of more unemployed people out there.

[TexasObserver]

11. Walmart knows it will be held responsible and is already reserving defense and settlement costs.

They'll reserve low, of course, but this case is a sure loser for Walmart.

Moral responsibility? On Walmart and all who pushed and shoved their way in that day.

This will cost Walmart 7 figures to settle.

[old mark]

16. I want to know why the fucking greedy shoppers who killed this person

are not in jail.

Your stupid opinions about Walmart have nothing to do with the facts that people just walked all over this person.

The store had nothing to do with it.

mark

[droidamus2]

18. Problem

Though I selected partial blame for the people and the store I have a problem with that. If you were a person in the middle of that crowd and everybody around you started pushing a shoving and there was no way for you to get out of the crowd you would have no option but to go with the flow. If you tried to stop or whatever you would probably get stepped on too. So who in the crowd is to blame? The first ones that started pushing, the ones in the front, the ones in the back? How to you assign blame to a mob? The people that had the opportunity to make sure this didn't happen are the store managers and they obviously didn't do their jobs. When I first saw this story the first thing I said to my wife was that if I was the manager of that store I would have been on the loudspeaker and told all customers to exit the store that we were closing and no merchandise would be bought. I would have also made sure that each and every customer was aware that somebody had been severely injured and possibly killed because of their callous disregard for other people. Yeah I know that would probably cause a different kind of riot so maybe getting the police or extra security in first would be required.

[KharmaTrain]

19. The Corporates Love The Mobs With Money...But Only With Money

It used to be "cute" to see people lining up early to get into the stores for the best bargains on "Black Friday"...a local news novelty...kinda like being the first on New Years to get the picnic ground permit. Over the years, the corporates saw that stores that got those huge lines also had huge sales...whip up both the demand and the urgency. Soon it became, "get here early before its all gone"...and soon we were seeing people camping out at malls at midnight and stores opening at 6 then 5 and now 4am to stretch this "demand"...and the more they can whip up the frenzy the more coverage and publicity.

As a kid, the day after Thanksgiving was one to relax and enjoy a long weekend, but over the past generation, Black Friday has become the do-all end-all for a lot of corporations. They not only want the big throngs, they need them...especially this year...trying to make up for a bad year of sales in one day.

Maybe we've hit critical max here. It used to be "cute" to "beat the crowds", but now when those crowds turn ugly, violent and even deadly, I suspect many will think twice about getting in the long lines in the future.

I think this incident was just what the corporates didn't want but got anyway...a reaction to their own anxiety.

[Edweird]

20. "Walmart didn't tell tell us what to do" is NOT justification for murder.

Scumbags.

[dynasaw]

21. Mob Violence

As much as I hate Wal Mart there is something wrong with a lot of people today: people with short fuses, poor self control and over blown sense of entitlement. Get a couple in any crowd situation and what you get is tragic situations like the ones in Wal Mart and the
shoot out at a Toys are Us store in California. Good grief, shopping is never going to be the same again.

[fishnfla]

22. choice 2 makes no sense to me, word-wise eom

[Vinca]

23. Obviously Walmart needs professional crowd control, but

I can't imagine human beings trampling some poor guy to death over cheap, Chinese crap . . . or even Tiffany jewelry, for that matter. Didn't anyone try to stop it? Did anyone scream at the top of their lungs for the crowd to stop? For the life of me, I can't understand the inhumanity of some people.

[ColbertWatcher]

24. Please see the photographs at the link and ...

... try to figure out how you'd be able to stop a crowd if you were in the front.

Wal-Mart has truly messed up with this one.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=4554275&mesg_id=4554814

[uppityperson]

28. I imagine many didn't know, and those that did could not stop for a while.

A huge crowd has momentum, and if you are in the middle and try to stop, you get trampled. I imagine there were a certain amount of people who were just trying to stay upright themselves. I also imagine there were people in the crowd that didn't know.

I cannot understand those who wanted to continue to shop once the rush slowed and it became apparent that someone was trampled.

[GrpCaptMandrake]

26. In any riot situation

there are riotters and those who incite it. The incitement is the condition precedent to the riot. Such human events are seldom spontaneous. That's why incitement to riot is a crime.


Get On The H.O.R.N.!
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[ColbertWatcher]

27. So true. n/t

[Incitatus]

31. I read in another thread a report that someone in the front shouted they're opening the doors early.

If this is true, it would have been the cause. Once the people in the back heard that and started pushing forward, there was only one place for those in the front getting crushed to go and there is no way in hell you are going to stop a rushing mob by screaming stop.

With proper crowd control, this would have been prevented.