I propose that Wal*Mart donate the proceeds from this store's sales throughout the season to the families of the 2 effected workers. It is the least they could do, and that is all that Wal*Mart wants to do, the least. Goes along with being the Low Priced Leader.
peace,
st john

My main reason for avoiding Wal-Mart is political, but another reason is the throngs of dolts one has to wade through to shop there.

Cheap shit from China is just not worth it.

I propose that Wal*Mart donate the proceeds from this store's sales throughout the season to the families of the 2 effected workers

Yeah, they'll do that — around the same time that monkeys fly out of your ass. They'd be lucky to get a note from WalMart saying how sorry they are — sorry that the man wasn't nimble enough to avoid being crushed to death by enthusiastic shoppers eager to take advantage of WalMart's everyday low prices.

It's not enough their cheap shit from China is killing our kids and pets. Now, death is just beyond the front door and made in America.

Wal*Mart and its loyal customer base are made for each other.

How long before a conservative pundit claims that this is a sign that our economy is problem-free since people are so eager to spend their money?

Police eventually shut down the store.

Ummm, what could possibly be of that much value inside a Wal Mart?

Were they giving away free gold bars?

It is a sick culture where something like this can happen.

What the fuck is wrong with people? It's not like Walmart is in danger of running out of cheap shit. And what a terrible way to die, trampled to death by a bargain-seeking horde.

I don't see how this is WalMart's fault in any way. For once, it wasn't the management who trampled over their workers; it was all those people full of Christian spirit, chasing a door-prize bargain. 200 people who, when seeing a man down, didn't stop but but kept on charging right over him.

It is in the mirror that we should be looking, not at the WalMart management.

What's with a crowd of 200 people in the parking lot at 5am? Was SprawlMart giving away video games to the first 100 shoppers or something?

This kind of ruins WallyWorld's Christmas campaign, Doesn't it?

Save Money. Live better.

Seems it should now read: Save money. Live, if you're lucky.

if you think the STORY is ugly...don't miss the COMMENTS... the people to blame for this?? one commenter figured it out...."obama voters"....i kid you not....

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. 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.

The likely corporate response: "He's just a temp, not a associate, so we're not responsible for his safety." Or something equally inane.

They always manage to wriggle out of these things. They don't employ hundreds of lawyers for nothing.

merry Fucking Christmas! I would have hoped that every shopper in the store might have been arrested for manslaughter. They do have cameras, do they not? Animals! I can't imagine going to work, then dying for WalMart under the hooves of ignorant beasts.

Scenes like this remind me of my longstanding hatred of pinatas at children's parties.

Accountability has to be drawn somewhere. This was clearly a preventable death but nothing was done. This is unreal. Seems Wal-Mart's priorities are skewed to that people care about their deals rather than the fact someone got trampled on.

Consumptive madness. Just go shopping,says Bush after 9-11.

Well, that's what they're telling us to do, to get this economy back in order. It appears that we're doing our best. You can't do better than stampede.

What kind of economy is it when when we have to literally shop until we drop just to prop the damn thing up?

Isn't that what all the bailouts are for, so far? To flood the land with a tsunami of easy credit so we can continue this buying spree?

At first glance, I thought this headline was from The Onion. Absolutely sickening to think it wasn't fiction. People waiting in crowds against a barrier with no control of the flow become animalistic, as this is not an isolated situation (and not specific to American culture, either). Something like this happened in India just a few weeks ago, and it has happened at European sports events, and American rock concerts. Who can forget the crowded stairwell tragedy at the club in Chicago a few years ago? There have been enough of these kind of crushing crowd incidents that Walmart can't claim ignorance.
Retailers, however, are setting people up to act according to their very worst instincts. Enough is enough! I'm so sick of getting commercially barraged with every holiday, months before the given holiday actually occurs. Ultimately, however, people are going to have to act to put an end to it, as retailers will only continue to push it earlier and earlier, and harder and harder.

Second on the manslaughter charges. And for anyone who entered the store before paramedics arrived.

What a blight on humanity.

Wal-Mart is responsible in as much as management saw 200 people thronging outside their store and chose to use a couple of temps for crowd control. Maybe they'll rethink that idea after a few multi-million dollar settlements.

In the end it just comes down to people, and the awful way our culture tends to put them together.

Consumer numbers have become the treasured products of advertisers and media outlets. We are bought and sold for ad placements ranging in value from the screaming super mop salesperson at two in the morning to the prime time Superbowl billion dollar beer ads. We are brainwshed by repetition designed to condition us to want things we really don't need. America is one big world wide marketing campaign.
As a result, there is no free world.

According to NYT:

At 3:30 a.m., store employees called the Nassau police to report that the crowd was growing quickly, the police said. Officers came by to try to organize the line, but were called away to a Circuit City, a Best Buy and a B.J.’s Wholesale Club nearby, to deal with crowds there.

There were estimated 2000, not 200. And they started lining up at 21:30 the previous night.

One of the reasons I absolutely *hate* crowds; they turn into mindless mobs much too fast.

I don't see how this is WalMart's fault in any way.

It's WalMart's fault, for one thing, because stuff like this happens all the time (though not usually with fatal results) when big box stores deliberately lure unmanageable crowds of shoppers into their stores for limited-time or limited-availability sales. That doesn't absolve the idiots who show up and race through the door, but this is a foreseeable, predictable accident, not a freak occurrence. Until either consumers or police departments start applying some muscle (don't hold your breath) it's likely to happen again.

More Christmas spirit, this time at ToysRUs:
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Toy-Store-Shooting.html

There are known ways to control and organize crowds - They could channel the flow, as they do at ski lifts -and to a degree, in airports - thru metal, single-file guard rails. I admit this would be a problem for a crowd of 2000, but it would work for 200 -

Multiple entrances would help too -

What a tragedy - Perhaps folks will shop somewhere else as a result?

But Bill O' will want to know, as people trampled over the dying man, did they say "Merry Christmas" or "Happy Holidays".

Isn't that how we measure our values these days?

Couldn't stores just give out line tickets, like the first 100 people get ticket A, second 100 B, etc., and they let people in by group? Kind of like Southwest Airlines used to? It might still be a bit of a mess, but it'd at least be a more manageable mess.

200 people who, when seeing a man down, didn't stop but but kept on charging right over him.

Unfortunately, once you're in the middle of a crowd like that, you really have no choice except to keep up or you could be trampled yourself. Once that crowd moves forward, it's every person for him/herself.

Frankly, they're lucky they only had one death. If you get into a really small space like a concert arena, it can be much worse.

Where are the criminal charges? They should have gotten some footage of the people messing with the door, and of the first ones on top of the worker. If I could have, I would have "opened up" on that herd of swine.

Stampede...

Ummm, what could possibly be of that much value inside a Wal Mart?

Pringles at 69 cents a can.

That Wal-Mart is right next to the Green Acres Mall, which is well-known in the area for attracting a rather rough crowd.

That's murican values fo yo ass dawg!

It should be shut down until christmas as a crime scene.

It is in the mirror that we should be looking, not at the WalMart management.

I just checked my mirror, but didn't see anyone that went shopping at WalMart or anywhere else this morning at 5 AM.

People were lining up at 9:30 the night before (Thanksgiving)
Police had to be called at 3:30 am
Store opened at 5:00 am.

There is so much wrong with this.

pace Anthony Bacevich, sometime in the 70's our leaders decided that Americans should stop being citizens and start being consumers. This is the result.
My guess is that the tramplers were trying to get a cheap game console or a cheap flat screen tv. Well worth killing for.

"I don't see how this is WalMart's fault in any way."

There are news photos showing Walmart had a sign near the door saying "Blitz line forms here." Blitz, as in blitzkrieg. In my opinion this makes it clear Walmart did its best to incite a mob frenzy, knowing full well what the potential consequences could be.

Anyone want to bet the part time workers family won't get shit other than a crappy holiday????

Retail establishment have trained Americans to only shop at sales with their endless holiday sales and pricing games any crap that comes their way they brought it on themselves. Too bad this worker had to die because people are stupid and corporations are greedy. Whatever it was Wal-Mart had selling that was so special was not worth it in any way shape or form.

They won't learn shit from this. They will continue to have those handful of items that they advertise for this fabulous price but only sell a few of, people will continue to fall for it, and we will continue to see stores like this (though hopefully they won't involve death).

Walmart- not surprised, always low wages, always low expectations.

Sam Walton burn in hell!!!!

This is unfortunately a regular occurrence at WalMarts on Black Friday. Here is my rant on a similar scene in 2005.

A woman was trampled nearly to death for a $29 DVD player. The regular price? $36.

Oh, Peter? I know all about the Green Acres Mall and I saw the pictures of yesterday's crowds...follow the 2005 links and those crowds are bit more of the, shall we say, McCain/Palin persuasion..