Topic: Wal-Mart employee trampled to death by mob of shoppers

[WindAndConfusion]

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/29/business/29walmart.html?_r=1

A Wal-Mart employee in suburban New York died after he was trampled by a crush of shoppers who tore down the front doors and thronged into the store early Friday morning, turning the annual rite of post-Thanksgiving bargain hunting into a Hobbesian frenzy.

At 4:55 a.m., just five minutes before the doors were set to open, a crowd of 2,000 anxious shoppers started pushing, shoving and piling against the locked sliding glass doors of the Wal-Mart in Valley Stream, N.Y., Nassau County police said. The shoppers broke the doors off their hinges and surged in, toppling a 34-year-old temporary employee, Jdimypai Damour, 34, of Jamaica, Queens, who had been waiting with other workers in the store’s entryway.

http://www.newsday.com/news/local/nassau/ny-limart1129,0,167903.story

Shoppers who surged past the fallen Wal-Mart worker into the store were asked to leave by other store workers, some of them crying and visibly upset, said one shopper, Kimberly Cribbs, of Far Rockaway.

Though rumors circulated among the shoppers that someone had been badly injured, people ignored the Wal-Mart workers' requests that they stop shopping, move to the front of the store and exit, Cribbs said.

"They kept shopping. It's not right. They're savages," said Cribbs.

For his sacrifice, Jdimypai Damour has been posthumously awarded the Smiley of Honor, Wal-Mart's highest medal.

[Pugnate]

You'd think this was an article from The Onion.

[Ghandi]

Of all the possible ways to die, being tramped to death by a horde of insane shoppers in a Wal-Mart is at the bottom of my list. What a terrible, terrible way to go.

Also, they have to have this on video. Surely they can see who was responsible. These people should be taken outside and beaten.

[Quemaqua]

My lack of respect for humanity reaches an all-time high.  We live amongst fucking barn animals.

I'd like to see those people explain what they did to the family of the deceased.  "But... but... there was this toaster!  And it was 50 percent off!"

Also, I like how Wal-Mart won't sell violent video games, yet you can die just by standing inside the store.

[iPPi]

That's pretty fucked up.

[Pugnate]

For some reason, I find the fact that he was "awarded" something as ridiculous as the "smiley of honor" to be almost as disgusting...

The sad thing is that not a single arrest will be made.

[Quemaqua]

Wait... the smiley thing was a joke, right?  Because if it isn't, my outlook after all this has just gotten so much worse.

[Ghandi]

I'm pretty sure that it was a joke.

Wal-Mart probably doesn't give a shit about this, though. They are evil. They are just happy that people are shopping there, with the bad economy and all.

[Pugnate]

oh god...

it was a joke...

[Cobra951]

Er, outside the quote blocks, after all.   

The whole idea of shopping akin to the running of the bulls in Pamplona is so fucking ridiculous to begin with.  That it happened in NYC is the least surprising part of the whole thing.  Poor guy.

[WindAndConfusion]

[gpw11]

Wow.  I can't think of a worse place or way to die. I can understand people being trampled in certain situations - if a building is on fire all bets are off and some people are going to become animals.  But for low quality goods that probably aren't marked down all that great anyways?  Maybe the terrorists are right.

[Xessive]

That's a pretty fucked up way to go man.

It seems to happen quite often in pilgrimages as well. The Islamic one, Hajj, is one of the grandest worldwide events with millions of muslims piling in to pace around the holy site. The messed up part is some people get trampled and die. What I don't get is it's supposed to be a pilgrimage of peace and forgiveness. All I can think about is WTF is wrong with people who tread and stomp on others??!!

[WindAndConfusion]

Two more killed in a shooting at Toys R Us.

The Islamic one, Hajj, is one of the grandest worldwide events with millions of muslims piling in to pace around the holy site. The messed up part is some people get trampled and die.

I've read about that. It spawned some fascinating research, actually; it turns out that the science that describes jet engines and hydroelectric dams and such (fluid dynamics) also describes the behavior of crowds. Basically, they identified the conditions that cause the flow of crowds to switch from laminar ("smooth") to turbulent. Injuries generally only happen under turbulent flow.

All I can think about is WTF is wrong with people who tread and stomp on others??!!

Once a stampede starts, you either keep moving or get trampled yourself. All I can think about is WTF is wrong with the people on the outside of the crowd who keep pushing everyone in front of them forward.

[WindAndConfusion]

Just to give this story some historical context, in 1883, some 183 children (out of a total of ~1100) were crushed or asphyxiated during the Victoria Hall disaster.

[Ghandi]

Once a stampede starts, you either keep moving or get trampled yourself. All I can think about is WTF is wrong with the people on the outside of the crowd who keeping pushing everyone in front of them forward.

Uh....Wal-Mart deals???!! What else?

As usual, I'm pretty sure that there's a relevant Randy Marsh quote from South Park that I could plug in here.

[gpw11]

Just to give this story some historical context, in 1883, some 183 children (out of a total of ~1100) were crushed or asphyxiated during the Victoria Hall disaster.

Well what the fuck do you expect from the British?

[Pugnate]

Two more killed in a shooting at Toys R Us.
 
I've read about that. It spawned some fascinating research, actually; it turns out that the science that describes jet engines and hydroelectric dams and such (fluid dynamics) also describes the behavior of crowds. Basically, they identified the conditions that cause the flow of crowds to switch from laminar ("smooth") to turbulent. Injuries generally only happen under turbulent flow. Once a stampede starts, you either keep moving or get trampled yourself. All I can think about is WTF is wrong with the people on the outside of the crowd who keep pushing everyone in front of them forward.

You are one of a kind... I can't believe you did research on that, but it is awesome info hah.

[WindAndConfusion]

The sad thing is that not a single arrest will be made.

The police have said, repeatedly, that they may press charges. It depends whether they can get an ID on anyone that trampled the employee.

[WindAndConfusion]

You are one of a kind... I can't believe you did research on that, but it is awesome info hah.

I thought you read Wired?

“At occupancies of about 7 persons per square meter the crowd becomes almost a fluid mass. Shock waves can be propagated through the mass, sufficient to...propel them distances of 3 meters or more....People may be literally lifted out of their shoes, and have clothing torn off. Intense crowd pressures, exacerbated by anxiety, make it difficult to breathe, which may finally cause compressive asphyxia. The heat and the thermal insulation of surrounding bodies cause some to be weakened and faint. Access to those who fall is impossible. Removal of those in distress can only be accomplished by lifting them up and passing them overhead to the exterior of the crowd.”

[sirean_syan]

Two more killed in a shooting at Toys R Us.

It turned out those people actually killed each other because they were rival gang members who ran into each other. Depending on your outlook on things, that might make things actually better because they're not just stupid people brought to the level of animals for $2 off a DVD. Rather, they're a group of people who are already braindead and were technically dead years ago. That whole area where it occurred has become a new center for LA gangs as housing and cost of living prices have gone up in the central reaches of the city have increased. In areas like this, people can do buy bigger/newer homes (or they could while the whole housing market was doing incredibly stupid things), so lots of lower income families moved out to the deserts surrounding LA in the past decade. They more or less took a lot of the hispanic gangs with them and now it seems cities like Riverside and Palm Springs have seen a huge increase in gang activity. Shootings like this are a sign of an old problem.

So yeah, yay people. It would have been nice if they just beat every person who charged through the broken door at Walmart and then took all the money they were going to spend on crap to donate it to something that actually needed it.

[Quemaqua]

That's the first sensible idea I've heard in a long time.  Sy for president.

[iPPi]

hahah yea i totally thought these people were just fighting over some toy or tomshting.  good to know they were actually gnag mbmers or somethign.

[Quemaqua]

Holy cow.  JB... drunk?

[gpw11]

I AM!  Sort of...in a not very drunk sort of way.  Fuck, I'd switch places with him in a second.

[Ghandi]

Holy cow.  JB... drunk?

Haha...

I don't know if it's good or bad that I usually have proper spelling and grammar when drunk. Probably a bad thing, since it means I've had practice.

[Quemaqua]

Note also that just because you have proper spelling and grammar doesn't mean you make any sense.

[Ghandi]

No, trust me, I'm well aware. Hence my absence from IRC. I usually give it a few days so that people forget my last visit.

[Quemaqua]

Haha, smart man.  Due to my formerly high alcohol tolerance (which is now down to like... 2 beers) and general ability to drink and continue to function well, I used to keep my same general level of nonsensicalness (that isn't a word, but it should be) when drunk.  I think I spent a lot more time drunk posting on the boards than people knew, which is... actually kind of sad.

And for some reason it makes me want a cigarette.  Damn it.

[Ghandi]

I went overboard that other night. Way too much red wine. I don't even remember the end of the IRC conversation. Then I worked 8 hours later, and that was not good. Drunk Ghandi cutting your steak = not the best cuts. Needless to say, I avoided the cutting boards.

[iPPi]

Haha yea I was pretty drunk last night.  Was at the company Christmas party and the people at my table weren't drinking, so I consumed a lot of free booze.  And that's the best thing about booze -- when it's free!