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I feel for this worker's family. And the even sadder part about it is, all these items these folks were rushing to get, will end up in their closest or covered in dust somewhere by this time next year!
I also think of the people that were just pushed forward and didnt have a choice. What do they feel right now. Because I would be feeling pretty crappy about it and ticked I was powerless to do anything.
Anyone else been in front of a crowd like that? Its like water...You cant control it once it starts to flow.
The typical perception of wal-mart is low-income families... The store seems to bring in alot of ignorant riff-raf. Not saying all low-income people are, so don't mince my words!
Perhaps there is a better way of putting this, but even in my area, which is pretty good, the low end stores get alot of rif-raf.
In a pretty hidy-tidy town in Wisconsin, a lady was robbed going to her car at a Target on Black Friday. Should Target be blamed for not having enough security/cops to walk people to their car?
Get a grip people. Look at the pic of the 2000 people. What would've happened if WalMart decided to not open their doors or only let a certain amount of people in at a time? I can guarantee there would have been more then one death.
You people wouldn't be so upset if it would have been Target or Best Buy. Funny that no other Walmarts had problems. At least not where we live or in Wisconsin where we are from and my family is. I don't blame Walmart at all.
that's a stupid example. stores have no control over who comes in and out of their parking lot. they do, or at least should, have control over the conditions in which they open their stores and set up their sales
mommytotwo brought up an interesting point earlier: can the store legally hold 2k people w/o violating safety codes?
look, there are plenty of things Walmart (and don't think I'm just picking on Walmart, it just happened that tradegy struck this chain. these are steps EVERY large store should take to prevent this from happening next year.) could have done:
-prohibit people from camping out on the property for long periods of time. I know it gets them a lot of press when the news profiles people camping out for days outside for a grand sale, but the longer you allow this, the large the crowd is going to get
-limit the number of people going in at a time (ie, batches of 100 spread out across a minute or so).
-slow down the rush by handing out stuff to customers (ie, additional coupons, or even sales flyers. hell, even little snacks or something. people will slow down to take these if there is an incentive)
-set up barriers so there is some order when people do enter the store (instead of having a large crowd all fanned out, condense them into a line)
-for extremely popular items (heavily discounted TVs and laptops for example), limit the number each person can buy and set up a way for people to pay for the item then and pick it up later at their leisure for the sale price (this keeps down the number of fights for the last item on the shelf)
-extend sales. yes, I know the whole thing about Black Friday is to get their early for the 1 hour sale, but unless a store is ready to deal w/ the onslaught of customers at that hour (most of the stores I worked at aren't. you'd be surprise how long it takes people to come into work that early, open the registers, and restock, especially if the store was open late the night before), they need to extend the sale a bit (for example, 4 hours instead of 1)
-have more security both inside the store and outside. train employees more on the specific perils of Black Friday (having worked in multiple stores on this day, they do LITTLE to prepare workers for the mayhem! working on this day is unlike working on any other day during the holiday season, and a lot of workers are brand new at times)
-come up w/ a policy on how to deal w/ the crowds when the store actually opens. you have 2k people all waiting for hours to get inside and grab stuff, these people aren't going to walk in slowly! I for one would not want to be the one to open the door when those people are geared up to go. simply opening up the doors, but having some other type of barrier in place can probably reduce the stampeding
Walmart doesn't deserve all the blame, but they deserve some. come on, did anyone else watch the chaos unfold when the PS3 and Wii went on sale? people were being shot and robbed while waiting in line and leaving the stores. every year, we see the drama that is Black Friday, and common sense would tell you that, in this worsening economy, people would be even more desperate for a sale. I don't know what other factors involved caused this incident to happen in Long Island and not any where else (of course, some idiots will keep posting that picture as if large groups of blacks= potential riot at hand. nevermind all the other Walmarts w/ a largely black customer base), but this situation needs to be looked at carefully, and ALL stores need to take proper precautions for next year so this doesn't happen again
Yes, Walmart really needs a union. The unions are DESPERATE for members which is why they've been pummelling Walmart for years. They're not interested in workers; they're only interested in trying to stem their hemorraghing membership. They will despicably glom onto anything they can find (including a man's unfortunate death ) in order to advance themselves. They are Satan. Run fast, run far.
eevee, the customers broke down the doors ripping them off their hinges and you think Walmart could have limited the number of people entering the store?
as much as I hate Wal-Mart it is not their fault, its the animals who raged in like a herd of buffaloes to get something on sale, it would be too hard to place security at every store on black friday.
I think they should be charged and they deserve a good beat down.
eevee, the customers broke down the doors ripping them off their hinges and you think Walmart could have limited the number of people entering the store?
well, I've been hearing that some Walmarts opened up at midnight, yet didn't start ringing up at the sale price until 5am, just to prevent the chaos seen in NY. apparently, a few Best Buys handed out vouchers for big ticket items to the people standing in line. yes, there are ways to prevent what happened. if you need armed security guards to stand n front of the doors to keep people from rushing in like lunatics, that's better than having people crushed to death. Walmart dropped the ball in this case, end of story. they could have done more to control this crowd (for one, they could have kept people away from the actual doors to prevent the hinges from being pulled off, if that's what happened there)
sadly, I don't see any charges coming out of this. it would just be to easy for someone to say "well, I had to keep going forward otherwise I would have been trampled!". it's just an insane mob mentality, and in a case like this, if you don't go w/ the flow, you get hurt. never mind the fact that actually tracking down these people and trying to discover who delivered the crushing blow will be really hard. from what I've heard, they may not even have credit card info to go by since nothing was bought on account of the death
ETA: from what I'm hearing, there was a lot of chaos all around on Black Friday. maybe there weren't any other deaths, but there were injuries, damages done to the stores, fights, and arrests.
Yes, Walmart really needs a union. The unions are DESPERATE for members which is why they've been pummelling Walmart for years. They're not interested in workers; they're only interested in trying to stem their hemorraghing membership. They will despicably glom onto anything they can find (including a man's unfortunate death ) in order to advance themselves. They are Satan. Run fast, run far.
Unions are not all bad for the employees.
I agree they have some employers by the balls though.
Quote:
Originally Posted by sailordave
eevee, the customers broke down the doors ripping them off their hinges and you think Walmart could have limited the number of people entering the store?
Yes, when 30,000 people enter a football stadium to watch a game, no one is tearing the doors off.
Same for a concert. Everyone gets in, slowly and with order.
Is it the same thing? No, but let's not act like controlling a crowd of 2,000 is an insane concept.
I think the difference is those peole have tickets and are assured a seat and to get ihn . The problem in those situation usual comes when figyhts breakout or the crowd drinks too much and those horraible incidents we see of assulkt in the satnds and ven the players getting involved like in the basketball incidents a few years ago. That is with ploiue everywhere too. But its the same type of thug mentailty really. In shopping problems its the same thing but they don't have tickets. Lok at the problem not only with fans at sports events but in celebration after a victory.Look at the problems at college towns alone. Enough to make you think taht there is something in the water;and not just a bunch pof drunk thugs everytime. Violence behavior is just getting more common now especiallly in the large cities.
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), but this situation needs to be looked at carefully, and ALL stores need to take proper precautions for next year so this doesn't happen again
