Walmart employee trampled to death.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/29/business/29walmart.html?_r=2&adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1227896151-wdsdjZd1+8b1akHy++zvfQ


This is ridiculous. What is wrong with these people? No, seriously. What the fuck is wrong with these people? There is no shopping deal worth tearing down doors and trampling someone to death for.

Wal-Mart had better get the security tape of this one and arrest every single moron who were standing at the doors for this one...

This is disgusting.

Word. And people ask me why I have a problem with Christmas.

i agree with every post so far.

goddammit, human race. fucking shape up.

this is absolutely disgusting to me. we're in the middle of an economic crisis, yet someone is dead at the hands of greedy materialism. i'm probably overreacting, but it sickens me to no end.

I already ranted in the black friday thread. This is the most disgusting thing ever.

You know what, in light of this HORRIBLE event, I hope the family gets a lot of out this. I hope they sue Wal-mart for everything it's fucking worth.

If it didn't happen at Walmart, it would have happened somewhere else. Two people were shot at a Toys R Us today. Society is fucked, I hate everybody.

This makes me so fucking sick, and I'm so glad to come here and see that you guys feel the same way. Society is fucked. And it makes me feel sick sometimes to be such a consumer; it's so ingrained in me that I can barely help it. But no amount of sales is worth disrespecting someone's space for. That's what has to have happened; everyone just pushing and shoving and fuck you-ing until some innocent guy dies. I hope everyone in that crowd feels sick and ashamed and never gets over it.

vb wrote:

I hope everyone in that crowd feels sick and ashamed and never gets over it.

The worst part is that they won't. Half of them probably don't know he died, the other half will say they were at the back of the line and didn't rush in. And they'll go on with another day of shopping tomorrow, it will never cross their mind again once they've convinced themselves of their innocence. I wish they'd have to face his family, apologize to them personally, and have to hear that it will never be enough.

This is so fucked up, I don't know what to think about it.
I guess I hope that this makes some people who've never thought about consumerism in a negative light stop and think.

What really makes me sick, is being in this guys shoes. Thinking, well, just another day at work, just another day trying to work, another day trying to make rent. Then, to be in a complete state of panic and shock as hundreds of shoppers, mad over bargains, stomp on you as if you aren't even there.

I genuinely don't even know what to say. Utterly horrible.

Okay, I agree with everything being said- yes it's absolutely disgusting and upsetting, but I have another problem with this. Since this happened, I've gotten a number of IMs and phone calls telling me about it, and there's this thread dedicated to it, and it's number two right now on bcc's top read news stories... can someone please explain to me how this became more important than the suicide bombing in a mosque in Iraq and the terrorist attacks in Mumbai? Normally I think it's because this person was American, and we tend to put more emphasis on American lives, but the India attacks were on hotels/foreigners. Is it because it's just so absurd? To me, THIS tells me that society is fucked. Not the fact that this happened, which I acknowledge is completely horrible, but the fact that so many people just dropped the rest of the worlds problems to be up in arms about one American's accidental death at the hands (feet?) of other Americans for consumerism.

I think this has gotten more attention because of the nature of it.In those bombings and terrorist attacks, the reason was to kill. This was a bunch of people out bargain hunting, going crazy over prices, and trampling on someone...all because of shopping.To me, the nature of what happened here is what makes it so bad.

I thought about that, and while it does make sense, along the same lines the fact that this wasn't done out of hate makes it not as bad? I don't know. I'm just disappointed in the whole world lately.

I also read because you think it's an American it gets more attention, and I have to say that I don't think thats it at all. IF this would have happened anywhere else, it would have probably gotten the same attention. But it doesn't seem like it would happen anywhere else, only we greedy Americans would kill someone over Christmas shopping.

Also, people get shot and killed daily in America, and it does not get this much attention. It gets maybe a 5 second stint on the news. There are a lot of violent crimes that happen with Americans, that do not get this much attention. The bizzareness and nature of the crime are at play here.

I meant like, when you look at statistics given in the news in this country, say about the war in Iraq, it's usually "____ Americans killed," forget everyone ELSE that was killed, AMERICANS died so we care.

But again, to be clear, I'm in no way saying that this isn't deserving of the attention- it's the lack of attention that the people I talk to (since I'm only basing this on the people who contacted me, other than the bbc top story thing I mentioned) are focusing on the other things that bothered me.

I think that the Walmart death was such a bizarre incident and so shocking to Americans that it became a huge news story. Unfortunately, I think that things like terrorism are easy for Americans to ignore when they're not happening "over here." I mean, honestly..if the "war on terror" were happening in America, I'm pretty sure people would be approaching and viewing things a lot differently than they have been for the last 7 years. I've noticed that a lot of people have this nonchalant attitude about it after awhile, like terrorism is just something that only happens in the middle east and we have no control over it, so there's really no reason to fret about it very much because eventually it will be over and that's it. People seem to live in bubbles and believe that things happening outside of their country don't matter as much as they really do. I mean, look at Hurricane Katrina and the 2004 Indonesia Tsunami. Both were very tragic natural disasters, but you can't even compare the numbers of deaths that were caused by each of them. The Tsunami was far more horrific and fatal, but I don't think I heard very much about it at all compared to the Katrina disaster..

hastekilledcreativity wrote:

I meant like, when you look at statistics given in the news in this country, say about the war in Iraq, it's usually "____ Americans killed," forget everyone ELSE that was killed, AMERICANS died so we care.

But again, to be clear, I'm in no way saying that this isn't deserving of the attention- it's the lack of attention that the people I talk to (since I'm only basing this on the people who contacted me, other than the bbc top story thing I mentioned) are focusing on the other things that bothered me.

The news around here gives Civilians killed, Iraqi soldiers killed, and American soldiers killed.

lauren wrote:

I think that the Walmart death was such a bizarre incident and so shocking to Americans that it became a huge news story. Unfortunately, I think that things like terrorism are easy for Americans to ignore when they're not happening "over here." I mean, honestly..if the "war on terror" were happening in America, I'm pretty sure people would be approaching and viewing things a lot differently than they have been for the last 7 years. I've noticed that a lot of people have this nonchalant attitude about it after awhile, like terrorism is just something that only happens in the middle east and we have no control over it, so there's really no reason to fret about it very much because eventually it will be over and that's it. People seem to live in bubbles and believe that things happening outside of their country don't matter as much as they really do. I mean, look at Hurricane Katrina and the 2004 Indonesia Tsunami. Both were very tragic natural disasters, but you can't even compare the numbers of deaths that were caused by each of them. The Tsunami was far more horrific and fatal, but I don't think I heard very much about it at all compared to the Katrina disaster..

That's very true. Not just for Americans. I know a couple people in Australia, who back when that Virginia Tech and Von Maur shootings happened, said they didn't care. They said they get international news about some American shooting up a public place so often, it doesn't bother them anymore. He went on to talk about how gungho Americans are about guns and how no one gets shot over there, so it's easy to ignore, it doesn't happen to them.

lauren wrote:

I already ranted in the black friday thread. This is the most disgusting thing ever.

I have to disagree with you.

Yes, this makes me fucking sick, but there's worse shit in the world, happening right now, than one person getting trampled to death.

Yeah, I was kind of exaggerating, it was the most disgusting thing ever in the news that day.
I know there is far worse shit that goes on in the world, I'm not that ignorant.