In this current economic recession, I had naively assumed that holiday shoppers would be less likely to run out to their nearest retailer and drop their hard earned cash (or credit) on Chinese-made goods this Black Friday. For my part, I stayed home and wondered what our local mall parking lot looked like while I surfed a few web-based retailers. Stopping in briefly at a news site to see the state of the world, I was shocked to come across this tragic news release from Long Island, NY:
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 employee, a temporary maintenance worker, tried to hold back the unruly crowds just after the Valley Stream store opened at 5 a.m.
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.
…A 28-year-old pregnant woman was knocked to the floor during the mad rush. She was hospitalized for observation, police said.
According to the New York Times, retail sales are significantly down overall, with double digit decreases in sales of clothing, luxury goods, electronics and appliances. Buyer turnout was leaner this morning as well. Yet, despite smaller crowds in the stores, the early morning “blitzers” were more aggressive than in years past.
Nikki Nicely, 19, wanted a television – a 40-inch Samsung flat-screen, to be exact, on sale for $798, marked down from $1,000, and available for a limited time in the wee hours of Friday morning at the Wal-Mart store in Columbus, Ohio.
So, at 4:40 a.m., when a fellow shopper tried to pry away the box she had been guarding for an hour, Ms. Nicely did not play nice. She jumped onto the man’s back and began to pound his shoulders, screaming, “That’s my TV! That’s my TV!”
A police officer and security guard intervened but not before Ms. Nicely took an elbow in the face. Still, when the dust settled, she had her hand on the box. “That’s right,” she cried as the man walked away. “This here is my TV!”
Welcome to Black Friday.
…”This year feels different,” said [Charisma] Booker, a 10-year veteran of the early morning Black Friday rush. “There were a lot more people here last year. You could hardly move in this aisle. There are fewer people here this year, but they’re more aggressive. I’ve never seen anybody fight like this. This is crazy.”
A man lost his life today opening a store for a throng of people who were so obsessed with “getting a deal” at Wal-Mart, they took the store’s doors off of their hinges. If Ms. Nicely is representative of their ilk, they would gladly rise before dawn, wait in line in the cold for hours, and get into a brawl with a stranger to save $202 on a television (which, by the way, Sears has online for $1 more.)
This was not an economic phenomenon. This is insane.
Deadly Long Island Wal-Mart Stampede
Via HotAir, horrifying video of EMS attempting to rescue Wal-Mart worker here.
UPDATED JANE Q. REPUBLICAN BLOG POST ON THIS TOPIC HERE.
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December 2, 2008 at 9:32 pm
[...] Jump to Comments Two Long Island men are suffering from neck and back pain after their Black Friday shopping experience and are suing Wal-Mart and the Nassau County police department for the sum of $2 million. Another [...]