More details emerge from yesterday’s horrible shopping tragedy -
Roughly 2,000 people gathered outside the Wal-Mart’s doors in the predawn darkness.
Chanting “push the doors in,” the crowd pressed against the glass as the clock ticked down to the 5 a.m. opening.
Sensing catastrophe, nervous employees formed a human chain inside the entrance to slow down the mass of shoppers.
It didn’t work.
The mob barreled in and overwhelmed workers.
“They were jumping over the barricades and breaking down the door,” said Pat Alexander, 53, of Crown Heights, Brooklyn. “Everyone was screaming. You just had to keep walking on your toes to keep from falling over.”
After the throng toppled Damour, his fellow employees had to fight through the crowd to help him, police said.
Witness Kimberly Cribbs said shoppers acted like “savages.”
“When they were saying they had to leave, that an employee got killed, people were yelling, ‘I’ve been on line since Friday morning!’” Cribbs said. “They kept shopping.”
Pictures in this case really are worth a thousand words. Photos from the scene:
With 2,000 people responding to the ads for Black Friday before the doors opened, Wal-Mart should have had a significant, trained security presence on hand. Rope lines should have been set up, instead of having people crushing up to the entrance. Events like this need that kind of organization precisely because mobs act irrationally.
In a news conference after the incident, Nassau County police spokesman Lt. Michael Fleming described the crowd as “out of control” and the scene as “utter chaos.” He said Wal-Mart did not have enough security onhand.
Policeman who arrived after the fatality, standing near a sign advertising where the
If signs like that and untrained employees linking arms were the extent of Wal-Mart’s plans for crowd control, it’s no surprise that this tragedy occurred. How sad and senseless. Shame on these people and shame on this Wal-Mart.
