Wal-Mart Worker killed by throng.

[Kanastrous]

Just outta curiosity, which mall (I'm from Bethesda)?

[Ryan Thunder]

More conservative "rah rah personal responsibility" blah blah bullshit.

Begging your pardon, sir, but exactly what the hell is bullshit about personal responsibility?

Fact is, you run a business and allow unsafe conditions on your property for customers or employees, you have acted negligently.

Yeah,,we should totally have to run everything under the assumption that anybody's going to whatever the fuck they want with impunity.

I thought that was why we had laws. Maybe I've just got it all wrong and the laws are just there for the fun of it...

[Edi]

More conservative "rah rah personal responsibility" blah blah bullshit.

Begging your pardon, sir, but exactly what the hell is bullshit about personal responsibility?

Because it's so often used by conservatives, usually pro-business types to heap the blame for negligence of a business organization on some individual employee as if the corporation could not anticipate the fuckups despite them having happened in the past. In situations like this, it's precisely bullshit.

Fact is, you run a business and allow unsafe conditions on your property for customers or employees, you have acted negligently.

Yeah,,we should totally have to run everything under the assumption that anybody's going to whatever the fuck they want with impunity.

Yes, you fucking moron, that's precisely the assumption they should be working under! I thought this thread had made it fucking clear already due to the nature of mobs. YOU CANNOT CONTROL THEM FROM THE INSIDE. YOU WILL DIE IF YOU TRY TO BUCK THEM!

What the fuck part of that has not yet sunk in?

I thought that was why we had laws. Maybe I've just got it all wrong and the laws are just there for the fun of it...

You also have the fucking police, courts and prisons because it is generally understood that all people will not follow the laws, so society needs a big stick to enforce them. And for the exact same reason that the police, court system and prisons exist, in situations which are conducive to formation of large crowds, businesses should operate on the assumptions that if it is possible, it WILL happen and take the appropriate measures.

Me, Broomstick, Olrik, Hillary and now CmdrWilkens have all related personal experience with mobs of varying sizes, along with documented historical evidence of what happens when things go to shit and you are still fucking ignoring all of it, both you and JCady.

The fucking evidence and justification for your arguments, asshole, right now. But given the way you have ignored everything so far, it would be better if some mod just sent this to the HoS immediately, because that's where it will end up anyway.

[Ryan Thunder]

More conservative "rah rah personal responsibility" blah blah bullshit.

Begging your pardon, sir, but exactly what the hell is bullshit about personal responsibility?

Because it's so often used by conservatives, usually pro-business types to heap the blame for negligence of a business organization on some individual employee as if the corporation could not anticipate the fuckups despite them having happened in the past. In situations like this, it's precisely bullshit.

We aren't blaming some poor, defenseless employee who had no control over the problem. We're blaming people in the crowd for being unruly, which is what caused the mob to be possible in the first place. I still don't see what's wrong with that.

Fact is, you run a business and allow unsafe conditions on your property for customers or employees, you have acted negligently.

Yeah,,we should totally have to run everything under the assumption that anybody's going to whatever the fuck they want with impunity.

Yes, you fucking moron, that's precisely the assumption they should be working under! I thought this thread had made it fucking clear already due to the nature of mobs. YOU CANNOT CONTROL THEM FROM THE INSIDE. YOU WILL DIE IF YOU TRY TO BUCK THEM!

What the fuck part of that has not yet sunk in?

None. The mob formed because people couldn't wait their fucking turn to get in, and pushed forward from some point in the crowd. They weren't suddenly compelled to push forward. People have to push, which means that some subset of people must have pushed first, and, thus, that subset of people set off this whole clusterfuck. What part of that hasn't sunk in yet?

I thought that was why we had laws. Maybe I've just got it all wrong and the laws are just there for the fun of it...

You also have the fucking police, courts and prisons because it is generally understood that all people will not follow the laws, so society needs a big stick to enforce them. And for the exact same reason that the police, court system and prisons exist, in situations which are conducive to formation of large crowds, businesses should operate on the assumptions that if it is possible, it WILL happen and take the appropriate measures.

I guess. Still, according to articles posted, Walmart did take measures. Obviously they weren't high enough over the top to control an unruly mob, but then, I suppose it might've been too much for people to just behave for once...

Just remember, we have Walmarts and Boxing Days in Canada, and we somehow manage to avoid this type of shit. What does that say to you? Are we just lucky or something?

Me, Broomstick, Olrik, Hillary and now CmdrWilkens have all related personal experience with mobs of varying sizes, along with documented historical evidence of what happens when things go to shit and you are still fucking ignoring all of it, both you and JCady.

What happened in the past is irrelevant, because in all the examples you stated, the mob had already formed and was unruly. At that point, there's no going back. However, the fact of the matter is that the mob can't form if people keep their cool. If people had kept their cool and waited their turn it would have simply been a mass of people waiting to get into the store.

[Illuminatus Primus]

More conservative "rah rah personal responsibility" blah blah bullshit.

Begging your pardon, sir, but exactly what the hell is bullshit about personal responsibility?

Nothing, but conservatives consistently like to fob off the responsibility of business and individuals to operate with concern for the public's safety in mind. The fact is a problem which is universal and intrinsic to the human condition (mob behavior) and which cannot be effectively and fairly prevented through deterrence because moral agency is diffused through the group. Many people if you had paid attention, are blameless, the shut-ins on this board's misanthropy notwithstanding. Quite simply, when pressured by the mass of a crowd without means of escape, people must move with the crowd to avoid personal injury or death on their own part. Utilitarianism dictates the only effective and consistent way to prevent such situations is to require businesses to conduct themselves in a manner that prevents and limits large and uncontrollable crowds. Businesses have a responsibility to act and behave in a way consistent with a realistic people, not ideal ones.

Fact is, you run a business and allow unsafe conditions on your property for customers or employees, you have acted negligently.

Yeah,,we should totally have to run everything under the assumption that anybody's going to whatever the fuck they want with impunity.

I thought that was why we had laws. Maybe I've just got it all wrong and the laws are just there for the fun of it...

Your solution is to hurl bullshit and shake your fist with all an old man's curmudgeonly "law and order" sanctimony. Its also useless and ineffective in a real world context. Human beings use drugs, commit crimes, act irrationally, act in their own self-interest at the exclusion of the community or group; a business unprepared to deal with human realities while engaging in commerce is negligent. Why do you think someone is to blame for having even a dinner party in such a manner that is brazenly negligent of public safety? Common law, reason, and ethics are on my side. All you have is trite five-second "people ought to act grown up" conservative truism. I particularly find this kind of shit grating, because the sanctimonious types spouting it are never the paragons of personal virtue they hold themselves up to be.

[Edi]

Ryan Thunder:

Get back to me when you can actually answer the fucking point, dipshit.

What happened here that the crowd had already formed and when it started moving in an uncoordinated fashion (which is precisely what will happen unless the crowd is organized and controlled), it immediately caused a situation where this sort of consequences were entirely predicatble. It is the responsibility of the business to arrange things so that the risk of any such mob formation is minimized and you are totally ignoring that point, asshat. Failure to organize the area outside the building but on the premises of the business is solely the responsibility of the company.

For your information, large formations of even trained people can be hard to control, which is one of the reasons why starting a convoy or marching formation moving and stopping it are affairs where coordination is required and the people supervising it have to be on the ball, as must all the people in the formation. This sort of shit is so goddamn basic to anyone who has any experience in any of it, which I happen to have due to having been part of such formations in the military. And in the goddamn military the people in the formations are trained in what to do and how to act and you still get fuckups.

The sort of crowd that gathers outside the shopping mall has none of the characteristics of a military formation (which can fuck up despite coordination, supervision and training), so things going to shit when given the slightest push is practically inevitable.

So you can take your bullshit about the people not being compelled to push and shove it right back up your ass, because in a mob it usually happens that the pushing starts from the back and transmits forward like a wave and by the time it reaches a few rows in, the people there no longer have a choice because of the accumulated pressure from behind. This was already explained multiple times. So fuck you and your smarmy, know-it-all wet-behind-the-ears smug ignorance.

Though you will naturaly ignore all of that and keep harping on your discredited bullshit. This thread belongs in the HoS.

[Illuminatus Primus]

We aren't blaming some poor, defenseless employee who had no control over the problem. We're blaming people in the crowd for being unruly, which is what caused the mob to be possible in the first place. I still don't see what's wrong with that.

Really? Can you precisely define which ones have collective moral responsibility, which ones were reasonably intimidated by the others, and the ones which moved with the crowd for fear of their own safety? Your ideological stance demands an ineffective and naively idealistic analysis of moral responsibility through a large crowd which will not effectively deter future occurrences and thus reduce the risk for employees and customers at other venues. My stance will actually save lies by requiring the management and workforce to take steps ahead of time to dissipate the risk of re-occurrences. My position is more effective at accomplishing a discrete aim. Yours is more effective at making the viewers of the O'Reilly Factor feel righteous. Guess which one matters two shits.

None. The mob formed because people couldn't wait their fucking turn to get in, and pushed forward from some point in the crowd. They weren't suddenly compelled to push forward. People have to push, which means that some subset of people must have pushed first, and, thus, that subset of people set off this whole clusterfuck. What part of that hasn't sunk in yet?

Can you effectively and fairly identify moral responsibility for the incident diffused through a large crowd from a couple photographs, limited camera angles? Can you do so without causing legal trouble for innocent bystanders? Can you likely pursue convictions so as to make the prosecutorial exercise not a waste of public funds? Will those possible legal repercussions effectively deter and prevent future incidents?

I guess. Still, according to articles posted, Walmart did take measures. Obviously they weren't high enough over the top to control an unruly mob, but then, I suppose it might've been too much for people to just behave for once...

Wish in one hand, and shit in the other. See which one fills up first. Then let me know which you'll be on to save lives and run a complex modern civil society. This is pissing in the wind to you, this is the dead-serious responsibility of public officials responsible for developing and implementing policy.

Just remember, we have Walmarts and Boxing Days in Canada, and we somehow manage to avoid this type of shit. What does that say to you? Are we just lucky or something?

It says you think you can laugh your way out of a bad argument and a non-rigorous, childish way of thinking about civil society and public policy issues.

What happened in the past is irrelevant, because in all the examples you stated, the mob had already formed and was unruly. At that point, there's no going back. However, the fact of the matter is that the mob can't form if people keep their cool. If people had kept their cool and waited their turn it would have simply been a mass of people waiting to get into the store.

Yeah, and how can you effectively do that? Require management to lower shopping frenzies and to force people to queue and forcibly eject people who are unruly and aggressive. Or we can try your pissing in the wind option, and see which one reflects better on us.

Addendum:

Why are so many so-called conservatives so fucking dumb? Is it because they think redneck truisms are a fair substitute for philosophy and empiricism?

[Ryan Thunder]

We aren't blaming some poor, defenseless employee who had no control over the problem. We're blaming people in the crowd for being unruly, which is what caused the mob to be possible in the first place. I still don't see what's wrong with that.

Really? Can you precisely define which ones have collective moral responsibility, which ones were reasonably intimidated by the others, and the ones which moved with the crowd for fear of their own safety? Your ideological stance demands an ineffective and naively idealistic analysis of moral responsibility through a large crowd which will not effectively deter future occurrences and thus reduce the risk for employees and customers at other venues. My stance will actually save lies by requiring the management and workforce to take steps ahead of time to dissipate the risk of re-occurrences. My position is more effective at accomplishing a discrete aim. Yours is more effective at making the viewers of the O'Reilly Factor feel righteous. Guess which one matters two shits.

Alright, fine, then. It is left to Walmart to do something about it, because people won't handle it themselves.

[Stormbringer]

Alright, fine, then. It is left to Walmart to do something about it, because people won't handle it themselves.

It is.

That's the case for the same reasons we have things like traffic laws or building codes. Even well intentioned and decent people can have bad things happen when you let anarchy reign. I doubt any of those people wanted to trample someone to death. But when you have thousands of people acting with out any form of organization and in many cases severe ignorance that's a huge risk.

PS: You do realize the hypocrisy in requiring that thousands of people must organize themselves in order to excuse an organization of dozens responsibility for a tragedy. Personal responsibility doesn't die the second you act as part of an organization.

[Darth Wong]

Ryan Thunder has a typical kiddie's view of responsibility, where it's just another word for "blame". He clearly has no concept whatsoever of the notion of duty of care.

[K. A. Pital]

I see Ryan Thunder has no concept of "neglience" at all. Unsurprising.

Neglience is hard to grasp for people who do not believe there is responsibility for inaction as well as positive acts. The whole conservative ideology is built on the idea that inaction and the "status quo" by default cannot lead to moral culpability, only positive acts can.

[The Yosemite Bear]

This is WALMART, they have been prosecuted by OSHA for letting 14 year olds cut brush and trim trees with chainsaws unsupervised (when the lightsaber duel began the teens ended up fired in the hospital.)

Excuse me but are you inferring they staged a lightsaber duel with CHAINSAWS ?

Infering Nothing, the two teenagers injured themselves having a light saber duel with plug in chainsaws, they had them not running but one of them grabbed the handle and started it up.

Walmart got in trouble for:
1. allowing minors to use powertools (big OSHA no, no)
2. Not properly supervising minors during work
3. improperly maintained power tools (the safety was disabled on the one chainsaw that went "Active")

[The Yosemite Bear]

I see Ryan Thunder has no concept of "neglience" at all. Unsurprising.

Neglience is hard to grasp for people who do not believe there is responsibility for inaction as well as positive acts. The whole conservative ideology is built on the idea that inaction and the "status quo" by default cannot lead to moral culpability, only positive acts can.

tell me does this mean we should start programming folks with Asimov's Laws, so that they do understand guilt through inaction?

[Napoleon the Clown]

Alright, fine, then. It is left to Walmart to do something about it, because people won't handle it themselves.

I know that you're being sarcastic, but pretty much, yeah. I recall an article in a magazine, something along the lines of Popular Science, where it looked at the tendency of humans to move in large crowds instinctively. It particularly mentioned using exits, where everyone would go for the same few exits, and others would be largely ignored, even if they were completely unimpeded and completely viable. Humans are social creatures, falling somewhere between a pack and a herd. All it takes is a few people bumping into others and you've got the entire crowd trying to go. And the sad part is, it isn't necessarily intentional bumps that trigger such things.

[Hillary]

Alright, fine, then. It is left to Walmart to do something about it, because people won't handle it themselves.

That's about the size of it. You cannot expect people to behave sensibly. That's why we have laws - you cannot rely on people to behave in a reasonable way.

The funniest thing is that you throw in a sarcastic post and it happens to be the only cogent thought you've managed in this whole thread. One more than JCady, granted.

[The Spartan]

Oh, the crowd knew exactly what it was doing -- they were chanting "Push the doors in!" after all.

Where are you getting this from?

[Count Chocula]

JCady got the quote from the article I posted on Page 4. Here's some more of the article, my emphasis in italics:

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.

From this very early perspective, this store's management took what they thought were sufficient precautions and store employees actually risked themselves to attempt to restrain an obviously out-of-control crowd. Obviously there weren't enough precautions taken and one employee died, but before you go pointing your middle fingers at Wal*Mart saying "you douchebags, it's all YOUR fault!" take a moment to consider Ryan's statements about the crowd. The two thousand people who bum rushed the doors at opening, mob psychology or not, do bear SOME responsibility for what happened. That's why the Suffolk County police are going through the store tapes. My guess is that when the dust settles Wal*Mart will be assigned some blame in court and hopefully, the people who trampled the worker to death will be in jail.

One thing I haven't read is whether or not there was a police presence at the store before the doors opened and the shoppers went nuts. If there were police on site and the crowd got out of control anyway, the Suffolk County chief of police (or is it Sheriff?) will have some 'splainin' to do.

[The Spartan]

Thanks, Count, I managed to miss that. Obviously.

[Ryan Thunder]

Sensing catastrophe, nervous employees formed a human chain inside the entrance to slow down the mass of shoppers.

Ironically, after reading this line, I now understand why people would assign blame to Walmart if that's what happened as a result of their (likely non-existant) crowd-control training.

[KrauserKrauser]

The precautions taken were obviously not enough but if people are inciting a mob, what the fuck can Wal Mart employees do about it? Ask them to leave? Along with the 1990 or so other people rabid for good deals that have been sitting there for days on end?

The tone of the responses so far have been as if Wal Mart was sitting on their thumbs as this guy was bum rushed, there were security measures in place and steps were taken to prevent this mob from forming. These steps were enough to prevent any, reported, injuries in the thousands of Wal Marts throughout the country on the same date at the same time. The people there were obviously not having any of it and the management should have just shut the fucking store down to prevent injury. Sadly, it took this death happening for that line of reasoning to even seem in any reasonable as closing a Wal Mart on Black Friday would be completely unfathomable without a prior incident to justify the change in procedure.

Obviously there exists a course of action that could have gotten everyone safely shopping and working with the mob instigators arrested, but it takes these kinds of incidents to recognize that more needs to be done, that for instance a store manager needs to have the discretion to shut down a store for an hour because the crowd is getting rabid. Of all the Wal Marts in the country on Black Friday this was the only reported, there could have easily been more unreported I admit, mob incident with injuries, this was an isolated incident which can now serve as the justification for drastic measures or more training.

The cops were present if the previously posted articles are accurate but full on riot control would have been needed to control this size of a mob.

What, short of turning away all of the customers, could have been done once the mob formed?

Since there were instigators of the mob, these people should have been removed, but that is on the police to do, not a citizen's arrest by Wal Mart employees locked in their own store.

[Cairber]

I went to the Plattsburgh Walmart really early to get some jeans, toys the kids wanted for Christmas, crafty stuff for the holidays and some Wii games for DH and I. It was a 24 hour store so people were all inside already at 3AM.

The black friday stuff was stacked in the aisles packed in tape and boxes so you couldn't touch it until 5.

Around 4:50 the power went out. It was nuts. People tore into things and just grabbed everything they wanted. The emergency power lights went on but they provided very little light. There was no speaker system and employees resorted to yelling to try and talk over the crowd. I grabbed a few things and just went and sat by the registers listening to my Ipod. I was going to leave but a woman told me the lights were suppose to be back on shortly.

Then the emergency lights went out because they apparently had only 30 min of life.

It was pitch black and the cops showed up and cleared everyone out; people were screaming and yelling about leaving their carts.

I went outside and was going to leave when I realized I left my Ipod with my cart. I slipped around the huge crowd that was standing by the doors to ask an employee if he could get it for me since my cart was right by register 1.

Right at that moment the lights flickered on again and people shoved forward. I was caught and pushed up against the automatic doors. They ripped the right door open and I made the decision to go through it-- it was that or continue to be crushed against the left door.

Then an African American (becomes necessary info later in the story) gentleman came and got the other door open and a cop backed him up and they got everyone outside again. He asked everyone to back up because he couldn't let anyone in until police swept the building and the registers rebooted.

People started yelling racist things at him. It was horrible.

We were finally allowed back in and I was able to get my stuff and leave.

This experience def lead me to believe that Walmart does not have the preparedness for this kind of day.

-not much emergency lighting-- just a few dome lights here and there
-no back up power
-30 min timer on the lights and they did not make everyone leave as soon as the power outage happened
-no announcement system without power
-no plan in place for store evacuation and securing the doors-- or, if they did have one, they did not implement it
-They simply stacked the Black friday stuff in the aisles, things like 42 inch HDTVs were in stacks higher than my head.
-The stacks made the main aisles impossible to move in, which made evacuation 10x harder, and, besides that, it also created more shoving and pushing


So when I read the story about this guy being killed, I really was not surprised considering the experience I had.

[Darth Wong]

The two thousand people who bum rushed the doors at opening, mob psychology or not, do bear SOME responsibility for what happened. That's why the Suffolk County police are going through the store tapes. My guess is that when the dust settles Wal*Mart will be assigned some blame in court and hopefully, the people who trampled the worker to death will be in jail.

Of course. My problem is primarily with Ryan Thunder's bizarre assertion that if you can affix blame to the mob, then everyone else involved must get off scot-free. That's not how it works; each party is responsible for his own misdeeds or mistakes.

It's like the classic scenario of the paramedics who improperly move an injured driver who slammed into a tree, exacerbating his injuries. Sure, you can say "Hey asshole, maybe you shouldn't have driven into that tree", but that doesn't mean the paramedics didn't fuck up, or that they shouldn't be held responsible for their mistake.

[Broomstick]

A couple comments, because I think it illustrates why a store like Wal-Mart is more susceptible to this sort of thing than, say, a typical Best Buy.

-not much emergency lighting-- just a few dome lights here and there

Emergency lighting costs money, of course. They probably install the legal minimum which, as you noted, is barely adequate. Wal-Mart's also tend to be cinderblock monoliths with little or no natural light available. Best Buy, as an example, typically has a "glass wall" of doors and windows that, in the event of a power failure, would allow quite a bit of natural light in, certainly enough for one to make one's way towards the front exist of the store even with a complete power failure. A power failure at night would be more problematic, of course, but even then any ambient external light would be helpful.

-no back up power

Of course not, that costs money.

-30 min timer on the lights and they did not make everyone leave as soon as the power outage happened

The 30 minutes is intended to be time in which to evacuate the store which, as you noted, did not happen. 30 minutes is more than adequate to evacuate even the largest Wal-Mart of even slow moving customers and those needing assistance IF the employees actually prompt people to leave the building.

-no announcement system without power

Of course not, that costs money and if it's not legally required then Wal-Mart won't have it. Nonetheless, even without an overall announcement system, IF store employees are trained in evacuation procedures they could start one at the beginning of a power failure. When I worked in a Chicago high-rise and was part of the safety team we had a plan for several types of emergencies and were told to institute them without waiting for further direction if such arose. 90% of orderly evacuation is looking the puzzled, surprised people in the eye, pointing them to the nearest exit, and saying "go there". Directions given in an authoritative voice will almost always be obeyed IF they're given before mob tendencies form up. Store employees simply directing everyone to walk calmly towards the nearest exit go a long way towards orderly evacuation. If said employees have flashlights it works even better, but a confident voice and clear directions work wonders.

Of course, there's always some obnoxious hold out. If you encounter one then get the rest of the people moving. That will either lead to Mr. Obnoxious eventually following the herd (isn't peer pressure wonderful?) or, if he continues to be stubborn, at least everyone else is out of the way. If someone is really stupid enough to refuse to budge in an emergency you may have to leave him behind but he shouldn't be allowed to stop everyone else from doing the right thing when it's time to leave.

-no plan in place for store evacuation and securing the doors-- or, if they did have one, they did not implement it

I'm inclined to think they didn't have one, or if they did, it was piss-poor. Such a plan should not rely on a centralized authority but rather the employees being trained to take proper action when a certain condition occurs, such as power failure.

And if you are evacuating a store "securing the doors" is low priority - doors should, in fact, automatically unlock, at least from the inside, so people may exit unimpeded through as many points as possible. Crowd crush is, in fact, why emergency doors in the US are supposed to have "panic bars" that unlock and allow the doors to open when pressed. That way, if a crowd does bunch up against a door it opens before the crush forces become lethal (this regulation is a direct result of the Coconut Grove nightclub disaster in Boston in 1942, so it's not exactly a new thing). In many localities the regular doors of a business are also required to have mechanisms that give way before a crowd before crush forces become lethal.

After a couple of more recent deaths in high rises using electronic locks, at least in Chicago it is now the law that electronic locks for business doors and stairwells must default to "unlocked" during a fire alarm or power failure. In other words, instead of requiring power to unlock the locks power is required to keep them locked. If the power fails the doors are open. Not only can you get into a stairwell (as an example) but you can also exit it at any floor so if the passage to the ground is blocked you can escape to find another route.

In an emergency anything that impedes traffic flow is a Bad Thing whether it's a locked door or a box of stuff blocking an aisle or loose carpeting to trip over.

-They simply stacked the Black friday stuff in the aisles, things like 42 inch HDTVs were in stacks higher than my head.
-The stacks made the main aisles impossible to move in, which made evacuation 10x harder, and, besides that, it also created more shoving and pushing

This may well be a violation of the fire code, which governs many emergency codes, and for the reasons you state - it impedes the free flow of movement and creates bottlenecks and hazards.

When my local Best Buy has a promotion store staff come out as soon as pre-opening crowd starts to form (for Wrath of the Lich King we had two staff show up when three people were standing outside the door) and even small crowd are monitored frequently. They will institute various crowd control techniques - forming lines, organizing small groups to be admitted, calling for the police to maintain order, etc. Aisles are kept clear. Promotional items are clearly marked, and often space is cleared around them to prevent bottlenecks.

As another example, at my local Meijer's (that's a big box store that's about half groceries and half general merchandise) management is very strict about aisles being kept clear. Of course, when restocking pallets of stuff do take up room but it is store policy that there must be enough room for customers to get by easily. This means their aisles are wider than Wal-Marts, which means more overhead for the same quantity of merchandise because the store is not so densely packed, and, well, Wal-Mart is all about maximizing profits and damn the rest, isn't it? Emergency exit maps are prominently marked and, surprise! located adjacent to emergency lighting so they can be seen in an emergency. They also have tornado shelters - I know this because they are prominently marked (they're actually the public toilets, which are built like bunkers). Does Wal-Mart have provision for severe weather? Damn if I know - I don't recall ever seeing any notice of such. Of course, by marking the weather shelters so prominently not only will store employees know the location, but so will a significant number of customers who, like myself, notice such things.

I don't think that the Wal-Mart in the OP had adequate - or any - employee training in crowd control if the staff thought forming a "human chain" was going to hold back a crowd of 2,000. The proper response to an unruly crowd forming up, or a present crowd becoming unruly, is to call the police (who are trained in crowd control and have the authority to use some force if necessary) not form a daisy chain.

There are a LOT of things Wal-Mart could do to improve safety but it doesn't happen because .... well, because they've gotten away with it so far. Minimal safety equipment and poor to nonexistant staff training is typical of the corporation. Most people behave themselves most of the time, at least well enough not to be a hazard to their fellow humans (being an annoyance is another matter) and thus these events are rare. That doesn't excuse failure to take minimal appropriate steps to reduce the chances of crowd crushes, ESPECIALLY during promotional or special events that attract crowds. The risks are not new, the solutions are not new and many are not even expensive to implement, and the pay off is less stress for everyone. That's why I think Wal-Mart has the primary blame here, as there are several things they could have done to improve the situation. Other people may well carry blame, but not to the same degree. Clearly this incident is being investigated, which is all to the good, and hopefully people will learn something from all this.

[Ryan Thunder]

The two thousand people who bum rushed the doors at opening, mob psychology or not, do bear SOME responsibility for what happened. That's why the Suffolk County police are going through the store tapes. My guess is that when the dust settles Wal*Mart will be assigned some blame in court and hopefully, the people who trampled the worker to death will be in jail.

Of course. My problem is primarily with Ryan Thunder's bizarre assertion that if you can affix blame to the mob, then everyone else involved must get off scot-free. That's not how it works; each party is responsible for his own misdeeds or mistakes.

It's like the classic scenario of the paramedics who improperly move an injured driver who slammed into a tree, exacerbating his injuries. Sure, you can say "Hey asshole, maybe you shouldn't have driven into that tree", but that doesn't mean the paramedics didn't fuck up, or that they shouldn't be held responsible for their mistake.

Oh, I get it now.

It took me long enough, though.

I was going to suggest trying to instill a better sense of good and safe public behaviour into people through the educational system. I figure if part of the problem is with the crowd, and you can avoid it by having them do individually simple things (like just remaining calm and waiting their turn, I mean), it would be good to focus on that.

[KrauserKrauser]

If the police were present and the mob formed, is the onus on the police or Wal Mart for properly dealing with the crowd? If a mob was incited and the police were present but unable to stop the formation of the mob, of course Wal Mart's crowd control procedures were inadequate, the police failed in their duties to remove the instigators.

The investigation is on going and all of these anti-Wal Mart sentiments aren't going to help in anyway getting to the truth.