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A man was crushed to death and a woman lost her baby in the madness that is post-Thanksgiving shopping.
I am trying to put myself in the place of those who were lined up, eager to shop for certain items that had limited availability, those folks who wanted to be Good Parents for their child and secure the wii or other urgent item.
I’ve always been leery of the phrase "I would kill for…" because we are not so evolved that we wouldn’t. Taught my children not to say the word kill unless they meant it. Words lose their meaning if they are used in mundane ways. Take care to use the words kill, freedom, God, love, "Help!" when it matters so that these words don’t lose their meaning.
A man–a temporary employee–was killed, and a baby was killed, so that good parents, well meaning parents, could be the first in line to get the Christmas items their own children desired.
I am trying to imagine the first person who stepped over the body of the fallen man. Or those who rushed past the stricken pregnant — but pregnant no longer — woman on their way to the toy counter. It is human. But very dark. Our first story in recorded human history is that we screwed up. Not sure we’ve evolved very far past that.
Christmas is deliberately scheduled to be just after the winter solstice, a reminder that light will come again, but maybe not so soon. [Hope this doesn't get me disbarred as a Presbyterian elder.] Those of us with winter depression know that Candlemas on Feb 2 is the better holiday, with the promise of spring coming soon.
But there is darkness all around. I have worked in a country drowning in darkness from the Soviet years, and recognize that my own dear nation is falling into the abyss.
We get trapped in what we feel is the right thing to do. It is an easy armchair condemnation of those shoppers – safely far away – who went too far. Let us be careful to look in the mirror and consider how far we would go, if we had so little money after economic collapse, and such an urgent opportunity to provide for our own.
*****
UPDATE: Peter Goodman of the NYT has much more on this tragedy.
crossposted at mcegregious
59 Comments
First, just a small update — the story about the woman miscarrying apparently jumped the gun. As of the afternoon, the NY Daily News reported that it was ‘unfounded’. In the most recent articles, it mentions that there was a pregnant woman taken to the hospital, along with 3 others, for ‘minor injuries’. Hopefully these revisions indicate that she did not have the pregnancy stomped out of her.
Addressing your main point, I think it takes empathy too far to assume that the people who did this were ‘good parents, well-meaning parents’. (Or that it matters if they were parents)
Regardless of their identity, these people trampled a man to death for cheap consumer goods. Wanting a toy for your kid (or spouse, or friend, or self) is no excuse for casually taking a human life.
Don’t kid yourself that this was a panicked crowd, or a momentary hysteria either. Reports from the scene tell a very different story:
“A Wal-Mart worker was killed Friday when shoppers desperate for bargains broke down the doors at a 5 a.m. sale. Other workers were knocked down as they tried to rescue the man, and customers shouted angrily and kept shopping when store officials said they were closing because of the death, police and witnesses said.” (from The Detroit Free Press)
They literally took the doors apart to get inside and satisfy their lust for consumerism:
“”He was bum-rushed by 200 people,” said Wal-Mart worker Jimmy Overby, 43.
“They took the doors off the hinges. He was trampled and killed in front of me.
“They took me down, too … I didn’t know if I was going to live through it. I literally had to fight people off my back,” Overby said.
Damour, a temporary maintenance worker from Jamaica, Queens, was gasping for air as shoppers continued to surge into the store after its 5 a.m. opening, witnesses said.
Even officers who arrived to perform CPR on the trampled worker were stepped on by wild-eyed shoppers streaming inside, a cop at the scene said.”
(from The New York Daily News)
So, you have a crowd of greedy, self-absorbed people who, unsatisfied with having to wait for their sale on cheap plastic garbage, tore the doors on a store open, trampled a man to death and four others into the hospital, stomped on EMTs as they tried to save the man’s life lying on the ground, and then resented having to leave the store where they had taken his life — because they wanted to keep shopping.
This isn’t about metaphorical darkness, or trying to be a good parent, or economic desperation. This is about how far people are willing to go for a discounted HDTV.
“The Long Island store reopened at 1 p.m. and was packed within minutes.
“I look at these people’s faces and I keep thinking one of them could have stepped on him,” said one employee. “How could you take a man’s life to save $20 on a TV?”
(again, the NYDaily News)
As it turns out, the answer to that man’s question is ‘Easily. You just put one foot in front of the other.’
Shocked and awed. Your handle says it all.
Walmart should have had real security as well.
2 men dead after shots fired in SoCal Toys ‘R’ Us
I worked for KMart the year Cabbage Patch dolls were introduced. I was also really pregnant with my daughter. People spit on me,knocked me over and called me every name in the book when we sold out of the 48 dolls we had. One man threw a bottle of shampoo at me.
Being a spoiled brat isn’t just for kids.
Our culture is emotionally disturbed.
Best piece I ever read about the effect of Wal-Mart on the US economy. This was from 5 years ago; I think we can assume that things are worse now.
http://www.fastcompany.com/mag…..lmart.html
I take seriously the old injunction against “using the Lord’s name in vain” because that’s invariably the case whenever the name is called, because there’s no one there. The old coworker who launched into a desperate cry for his long-lost wife under the strander where none could go was only another such futile follower of ghosts.
Second, you also dilute the effects of terms by avoiding them. It is ever so much more palatable to “have to put down” your pet than simply to have it killed. We talk sometimes as if we were addressing nervous children.
And deploring market madness has been with us since maybe the early nineteenth century. Then it was bohemians scoffing at the bourgeoisie; now it’s the corruption of capitalism. But it is truly ironic that the season to celebrate the one who preached ever against wealth is the time for avaricious madness.
Just one experience to report from the Thanksgiving-day news. Somehow terribly, awfully sad, imo. Very peaceful, no one hurt physically. But…
eerily disturbing.
A very cheery-sounding, albeit exhausted-looking shopper at one of the big-box stores was interviewed by a reporter and asked about the mysterious lure of Thanksgiving-day shopping.
By way of response, the lady chuckled and said the whole rest of her family was at home celebrating Thanksgiving together, but she opted to forgo that family experience, “anything to save a buck, you know,” says she. Oh my. We’ve experienced our share of doing without, but never…, never in a million years would we have been tempted to miss that precious, priceless family time in order to “save a buck.”
Maybe that’s why our kids, now grown, still feel a deep and great desire to join us for Thanksgiving. As often as not, they’ll find a lonely friend or 2 to bring along.
You can’t replace such time with that last cabbage patch doll from the bin. It’s deeply personal, irreplaceable, precious, priceless.
Thank you, egregious, for this and your many other fine posts on the theme.
Sign me a compassionate heathen who tries to keep family values in perspective, front and center. But then, I’m spoiled rotten, and shamelessly loving every minute of the experience.
This story sickened me as well. If anything, I am one of the least acquisitive people I know. I have very few possessions and none of them have any monetary value. Things have never made me happy. People make me happy. Dogs make me happy. A beautiful, sunny day in October with the trees lit up around me in a myriad of colors makes me happy. The laughter of a little kid makes me happy. Books make me happy, especially ones I thought were out of print and I find them at used bookstores for a couple of bucks. My significant other makes me happy.
Those who would step on or over an injured person to get to a toy display or a television aren’t people, in my humble opinion. They’re soulless creatures wandering around in human bodies. Egregious is correct, though—there is that capacity in all of us. I have forsaken friends for selfish reasons before. I have lied, cheated, and stolen. I don’t point the finger of judgement at folks so easily now that I recognize my past and understand how I came to be that way. The fact that I am not a shopper and bargain hunter and that I don’t want to waste my life buying crap that will never make me happy doesn’t make me a higher life form. Yet, the disconnect in the psyches of these people who killed the man at Wal-Mart is frightening—as if the world were suddenly populated by zombies.
ok. this is all insane and completely beyond my realm of comprehensive. The Long Island shoppers displayed behavior completely alien to me. They might as well be ancient Aztecs playing ball for the privilege of being sacrificed, as far as I’m concerned. I loathe shopping.. I happily wait until the crowds have died down to pick through the wreckage of inventor which they leave. And I should add that I’m generally reckoned to be an extrovert…. far from being an antisocial shut-I . This is all too bizarre for me.
when I first heard this, reminded me of stories we hear every year from religious pilgrimages across the globe.
figures our stampede deaths would come on Black Friday in the shopping districts. says a lot about our society.
comprehension… not comprehensive.. iPhone autocomplete again
I heard some shocking responses to this story from some surprising people. Apparently those who shop at WalMart are safely “The Other” who can be mocked even in tragedy, because they are Not Us.
This tendency is part of our human nature, and not very far beneath the surface. I admit to feeling this way and pray I never act on it.
As the Bush depression deepens and millions more are thrown out of work in the next couple of years, expect to find more behavior beyond the pale.
Family violence always goes up during economic downturns. Stealing, out of desperation or opportunity. Assault, anger that seeks a ready target. Scapegoating of minorities — again.
Difficult times ahead. Need to keep thinking how to ameliorate these disasters.
what is this emphasis on “Good Parents?”
I dont read that into it or in any of the stories. They were after $400 big screens for god sake.
I don’t think I will wade into press reports to assess the state of mind of the crowd. It’s tragic that someone lost his life in a shopping incident.
As an individual, I hope and pray that I would make the right choice when I’m in a position to do the right thing.
If the crowd had been waiting a long time, and protecting their spot by enforcing no cutting rules, then when the doors opened, the rules changed and it was every man for himself. I think maybe that moment was when anyone standing in the wrong place could be hurt.
Free market consumerism and free range consumers.
I made the mistake one year of going shopping the day after Christmas. What an experience! And what shocked me was that people were pushing and shoving to get to Christmas wrapping papers and ribbons and bows and tree decorations for the next year! I wasn’t, so I got my one purchase and fled. Have never shopped on Black Friday and think in light of what happened yesterday they should stop having it.
I’m all for stopping the madness of Black Friday. Stores opening at 4am (Kohls for example) and forcing their employees to cut a holiday short that is focused on gratitude and thanks don’t deserve my money.
This puzzles me. Who are those people that sink to mob psychosis? I am also puzzled by the election. Did 47% of the population really vote for McCain? Who are they that found Palin acceptable? It’s a wonder that society stays in one piece!
Who are these people? They are us. They are human. Okay, maybe no one here would stampede or step on a man for a good deal on a big screen tv, but, stop and think about it. There have been times even here, where one person went off, negatively, on some tv personality and there were a number of others who “piled on”.
It happens, even to the best of us. I say that because I think that most people on this site are the better of us for wanting to educate themselves about social activism and political justice.
But, there has been some piling on and that has to do with mob mentality.
I’m not condoning it, but I wonder when “we” throw stones so easily, why we do so.
I hope people don’t get me wrong. Of course, the story makes me sick.
I just don’t think we should be see it as only other peoples problems.
I apologize to EG if my comment was inappropriate.
Demi, we are basically agreeing. We are all capable of piling on, throwing stones, thinking like a mob. It’s not far beneath the surface, and under severe economic stress we will see more of it.
Oh, good, I’m glad I didn’t get any dander up.
I’m thinking about the Stanford Prison Experiment which concludes basically that most we follow group think.
Sometimes I get a little preachy, but it’s not my intent to hurt any feelings.
Personally I find it appalling that people make excuses for murdering someone to get a discount on a tv.
I will state right out that I’ve never had the urge to trample anyone to death, over anything. I’ve been in crowds waiting all day to purchase something, I’ve waited on line for hours in the cold, I’ve done my consumer thing (mostly as a kid who had more energy for a shiny toy or a concert now and then).
But the thought of, not just stomping a man to death, but then feeling no remorse; going on with my day, with my shopping, and when the police ask me to leave so they can deal with a crime scene, *resisting* them, as some of these people did. Wow.
These people aren’t ‘The Other’. I shop at Wal-Mart from time to time, I don’t consider the people who shop there to be ‘The Other’, whatever that means. I’m one of them!
This particular mob, on the other hand, don’t need us wringing our hands and making excuses. What they did is unforgivable. Whether it’s human nature or not is irrelevant; we’re supposed to be better than that low, low standard. If we want to throw up our hands with the excuse that we all have nasty urges and ‘dark’ tendencies, we might as well toss out our laws, burn down civilization and huddle in the ashes eating each other. At least it’d be less pretentious.
No blame for the store management, who set things up so that tragedy was the likely outcome?
I haven’t talked about the store management at all, so I don’t know where you’re getting that from. However, if you read the articles I linked, you’d know that this store had:
–In store security
–Third party security
–Barricades
–Locked and secured doors
–A human chain of employees trying to restrain the crowd
I guess I have to condemn the store in order to even address the issue of the people in the mob? Ok, fine, let’s get the obvious out of the way.
Were these measures enough? No. The police, again in the articles I linked, say no.
“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.”
From the NY Daily News
A food worker’s union is already calling for action.
However, you didn’t spend your time excusing the store’s behavior, so I didn’t comment on them initially. I would say that likely, the local store management had very little say, and this is a corporate decision, how much to spend on security and staffing and the like. I would assume so, given the autocratic way Wal-Mart is run.
The corporate boogeyman won’t get us out of this one though.
Is there NO personal responsibility for these shoppers? Are they automatons? You’re honestly saying this was ‘inevitable’?
Really? Inevitable? That people killed for discounts on HDTV, on jeans, on a vacuum cleaner?
Wow. I thought I had a low opinion of humanity. You make me look like positively upbeat.
Please don’t get personal.
It won’t get you anything good.
Egregious is a very lovely and loving person, but she’s still a person and it might be nice if you took a breath.
I don’t see it getting personal. She made excuses for the mob.
Whether or not those excuses are valid is an entirely different area of discussion. You’re welcome to it; my position should be fairly clear.
Instead of addressing that, egregious chose to question me for not dealing with some other point. I subsequently did. It was easy. I honestly thought it went without saying, but I said it anyway.
Ultimately, it doesn’t matter much whether we’re nice to each other here, or are loving, or lovely, or what not. What matters is, what lesson do we take from this? How do we let it govern our behavior?
A man is dead. Dead. That’s irrevocable. The police despair of catching any of his killers, as the closed circuit tv isn’t that great and there were *so many*
So many.
It’s not personal for me. I read about it on a website from my comfortable living room, a thousand miles away. It’s personal for the family that will have to bury this man in a few days.
But I suppose, given the tenor around here, I should bow out. I’m not going to make up any ground. There’s an emerging narrative of corporate responsibility and crowd behavior and the Stanford Prison Experiment (which didn’t deal with mobs at all, it was a few students in a basement over a prolonged period under very stressful conditions, not a hundred avaricious people standing outside a wal-mart, free to leave at any time, but hey).
That narrative is very, very dangerous. It can be used to excuse anything any group of people want badly enough. It’s not for me.
As someone pointed out in another blog site, other chains like Target and Best Buy do a good job of managing crowds so tragedies like this don’t happen.
I suspect after Wal-Mart pays out a multi-million dollar settlement to this worker’s family, the management there might finally get the word!
Wal-Mart’s sales figures are actually up this year. These events are enormously popular, and the stores count on luring people in with a handful of these highly publicized deals because for many, this is it, the bulk of the holiday season (in which spending and celebrating are synonymous anyway).
Black Fridays are only going to get worse, I imagine, as the holiday season becomes more and more crucial. It’s not enough to make money; you have to make *more* money than last year, and even more the next, and we’re already a country that spends every dime it has, every year (and then some).
Wal-Mart will pay out a settlement to the man’s family, assuming they get enough bad press. It will come out of a massive corporate insurance policy, and constitute an infinitesimal fraction of the profit they made that day. It might not even equal what that one *store* made that day.
Life will continue as it was, and nothing will change. In a week, the country will have forgotten all about it. Maybe next year, someone will dig up a page like this and talk about being careful for the next Black Friday. That’s about it.
Blue America up at the Mothership with guest Tom Perriello
egregious, I was sickened by this story too, and how needless it was. People trampled during a fire or panic is one thing, bad enough, but this poor man trampled by people trying to buy things. Sickening. And yet, to your questions about imagining the people stepping past or over him – I have to assume, that the crush of people was so great, that those in front were pushed past and over the man, they probably had no choice but were shoved forward. Horrible.
That said, this whole sale frenzy is a manufactured thing “sale ends at noon!” – it’s just wrong. And our greed and rampant consumerism on display at Christmas – a sign of sickness in our culture.
Sadly, as I noted in my first comment to this story, we cannot excuse this behavior as being caught up in a mob, being crushed forward by the crowd, and so forth. Even if you buy that for the initial attack, subsequent waves of people stepped on emergency workers trying to save the man’s life, and once in the store, shoppers resisted the store officials who told them to clear out — a man had died.
They had a choice. Perhaps, and only perhaps, they had no choice but to step on this man. But they later had a choice, and they chose not to feel guilty — they had money to spend instead.
This is one of the most disturbing parts of the story. Have we even lost respect for emergency workers? This is very dark.
Hey Pups Digg this post!
I don’t think I’m disagreeing with any of you. The overall point is this was not an accident, in the sense of an unimaginable freak outcome, it was the inevitable statistical result of a poor economy and immoral WalMart management practices.
It will happen again, if we learn nothing from this incident. I’m trying to look at it from a variety of perspectives, from the heart of the desperate parent to the shock of those trapped in the surging crowd.
Also, sorry for the few typos. My mind is only half here, since I’m working at practicing some music.
I agree with your comments about what happened after. I am just trying to imagine how people shoved their way over this man. I have to believe that they were, in turn, shoved from behind. But you would think, after this, that everyone involved even periphially, would be shocked, distraught. To continue shopping? I can’t begin to understand that.
Precisely. I’m willing to concede that the crowd may have had little choice but to go forward. That happens. It’s not the point though.
Afterward, when the situation had calmed and the people were in the aisles looking for bargains, they were asked to leave. They didn’t want to.
They went on shopping.
Repeat that in your head, every time someone tries to wash away their guilt.
They went. On. Shopping.
Not trying to wash away anyone’s guilt. Trying to understand what happened, all of it, so that we can prevent it from occurring next time. Part of my public health training is in so-called accidents, or unintended outcomes, to learn what parts of the situation are amenable to change.
And yes, I think I am saying what happened was inevitable. These mob scenes have gotten more desperate every year. If you leave gasoline, flammables, and matches out with unsupervised youngsters and come back to find a fire, is that an “accident”?
Again, the analogy only works if the shoppers are children, free of moral responsibility.
If I left matches and gas soaked rags out and a couple of drunken frat boys set a fire, I would not be entirely to blame.
Wal*Mart + maddened and manipulated consumers = this tragedy/murder.
I see responsibility on all sides, but I placed the company first deliberately.
But, if you knew the drunken frat boys were going to be stopping by the place where you left the gas soaked rags and matches? Turning this into proof of what a morally superior person you are, that you would never trample anyone doesn’t help matters at all. If you had asked anyone in that crowd Thursday morning if they would ever trample someone to death for a TV, they would have said no, and been disgusted with you for asking.
Walmart knew that there were going to be large crowds and took no security precautions. They in fact feed the mob frenzy attitude through their marketing procedures. They release footage of shoppers rushing into the store, knocking things and people over, thus teaching their customer base the correct way to celebrate Black Friday.
Crowd behavior has been closely studied and is predictable. Other stores handle these sales differently, taking this knowledge into account. System security isn’t based on how well the system succeeds, but on how it fails.
I can’t help but think of a time that I was at a Grateful Dead concert and the doors opened, and I was literally lifted off my feet by the crowd. I’m not a tall person, but I’m not short either… but I had no control over where I was going – at one point I was pushed into side wall and was worried about being crushed. I was in no particular hurry to get in – but others were pushing and shoving me from behind.
A mob is not a set of people who can each exercise individual volition. It’s not like someone at the front of the press of the crowd (or anyone in the middle, for that matter) could stop the movement forward… they’re being pushed by people behind them who’d be increasingly unaware that there’s someone about to be trampled underfoot.
This is tragic, and we can hope that Walmart would and could exercise greater crowd control. It’s easy to point fingers at the people in the crowd and characterize them as callous and unfeeling – but what’s most likely, I think, is that they were largely unaware… and out of control in that way that large mobs of people invariably are, consumer culture or no.
What I find appalling is that the Wal*Mart store where this tragedy took place reopened that day. That speaks volumes, even screams to the point of shredding one’s vocal cords how wrong and corrupting “consumerism” is.
Wal*Mart, IMO, represents concisely what is wrong with our country and our vulnerability to manipulation by distractions/consumerism.
I’ll never set foot in a Wal*Mart again, and hope some others can find the wherewithal to call out this symbol of degradation and the lowest common denominator.
For anyone interested in mob mentality, or group think, here’s the link for the Stanford Prison Experiment:
http://www.prisonexp.org/
First let’s get all facts straight regarding what actually happened, which is horrid enough without embellishments.
Then, let’s be mindful of group think and herd mentality. Shirley Jackson was: The Lottery
I’m saddened to hear so many here focusing on the consumers who, let me remind you are the innocent victims, all of them of a real criminal conspiracy. You call these shoppers callouse, careless, selfish, wild eyed, and worse wile ignoring the REAL Villians here the Merchants. They set their own customers this disaster. They are the one’s who “YELLED FIRE outside the Walmart” with their “limited quanity” or “While they last” or “Only twenty availible” and what ever other siren songs their advertising agencys could come up with to incite and drive them into a mindless stampedes to purchase these Holy grails of commerce. They did this DELIBERATELY! with total indifference to the real dangers they created to public safety. And why did they do this? A mindless quest for profits. Do you really think they weren’t aware of the dangers inherent in creating this shopping frenzy? Their attitude shows them for what they truly are Greedy negligent Bastards and in my book they are no different that reckless drunk drivers! Please don’t let them get you to blame the cattle, when they the Corporate foxes are the ones who deliberately, with malice started the stampedes that led to this horrible unnecessary crime.
Your analogy only works if these people are, as you say, ‘cattle’.
My grandparents are farmers. I’ve been around cattle quite a bit. I try to hold people in higher regard.
Consumers are the innocent victims? The victims are in the hospital today, or the morgue.
The shoppers were put into a state of mind that led them to think they were perfectly safe and having fun in their excited “WILD RUSH” to get that advertised special item. They had absolutely to reason to believe this was a dangerous enterprise to themselves or others. They certainly had no reason to think they would hurt or harm others. Just like people who get on a roller coaster have every expectation that the ride is in reality perfectly safe and not really dangerous at all. In this case, in the shoppers had every reasonable expectation that they were engaging in a “SAFE” and harmless stampede. It was part of the excitement of the shopping event promoted and staged by the retailers. It is the retailers who decided to ignore the real dangers and risks of creating these shopping stampedes without taking all precautions neccessary to protect the innocent participants. The most insideous part of this entire event is how the retailers and the media are letting the shoppers take the Blame for getting on the retailers “Black Friday shopping ride”.
Woops! I goofed a bit with my attempt to BOLD some of my rant. Sorry
Let me know how you would like the bold, happy to edit for you.
right after Deliberately I left the “
Where’s Voltaire or Jonathan Swift when you need them? The shopping deaths at Walmart and Toys R Us cry out for the kind of moral satire they excelled in. The big rush tells the world a lot about the United States, and it isn’t nice.
I never understood the big deal about massing Christmas gifts. When I was young (60 years ago) we got a few things, and to make the pile look bigger my parents bought stuff they needed for the household, wrapped it up and put it under the tree. (When I tried that trick the first Christmas with my to-be wife, I got more than a mouthful). Anyway, I just don’t see the point. We follow American League baseball rules for our Christmas gifts; if one of us sees something especially nice during the year that costs a little out of the ordinary, it becomes the designated Christmas gift. Works well, and there’s more choice, not to mention better prices.
There’s something very sick about a society in which people feel compelled to assert their self-worth by buying things.
I’m officially going to tune out now, so I’m sorry to cut the discussion short, but, as the timestamps might indicate, I haven’t slept in a while.
It’s been real, I’ll say that.
One more thing? You do make a good point about the individual store management. I should clarify, that my blame is for higher management that set the policies and restricted the local stores’ ability to handle the mob scene by having insufficient resources and guidance.
One thing – groupthink and herd instinct/mobs are two different things. The Standford Prison Project has nothing to do with an event like this. No one was trying to coerce anyone into trampling a man. Remember enough of my sociology to recognize what probably happened, but not enough to be sure.
Police had been called but not cleared the crowd or restored order. What the workers did (barricade the doors with their bodies) was a very bad decision (but since the man who was killed was a temporary maintenance worker one has to assume no one with knowledge of crowd control was on hand). The people coming to barricade the doors could probably be seen by the crowd, who thought that the doors were being opened. Word passed through the crowd, people at the back started pushing, the doors gave way and the human wall came forward into the store.
Why did people not want to leave? One of the things about big box stores is that they are specifically designed to feel safe, make people feel contented. That is why the ceilings are high and brightly lit, shelves tall, but not looming overhead. Retail spaces have a great deal of human engineering research behind them.
It is hard to convince people who feel safe that they are in danger – much of the same effect as people not evacuating for fire or hurricanes. There was a study after the Woodstock 99 festival that showed that making a large crowd situation too “safe” actually increased dangerous behavior. When there is a sense of danger, humans usually unify and start working towards the safety of the group.
Add in sleep deprivation…
One thing I found amazing talking to neighbors is that they no longer teach civil defense in schools. Apparently, all we had to fear was the bomb and the rest was window dressing. But just the knowledge that there is a right and wrong thing to do when shit starts getting bad and ugly is an important thing to know. I get the sense that people here know that a mob of 2000 people trying to get into a sale at 5AM is no where to be if you want to be safe. But a lot of people don’t seem to know that… and to assume that being in a Walmart means you are safe.
One last bit – stores have to get permits from the local police departments to open early – one hopes that the police will start to be more proactive about determining if they have adequate security plans.
It’s no surprise that Maha has an interesting take on this.
As does Wolcott
Nice work, eg, and a hearty discussion! I’ll add that I think it’s most interesting that Walmart immediately let it be know that this was not an employee death (as was originally reported) but rather a temporary employee death. Must be a huge distinction in the coming lawsuit.
Nonplussed adds the following comment on my small blog mcegregious: