Thanksgiving is the day Americans very briefly pretend to be civilized family people as they gather around a table covered in once-a-year homemade food. The day after Thanksgiving — Black Friday — is when Americans return to their real selves. At 5 a.m. today, outside a Long Island Wal-Mart, a crazed mob busted through the doors and crushed a 34-year-old temporary employee. He died. Four lunatics were injured. [Reuters]
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{ 110 comments }
This is infuriating to me on a level that overwhelms even my jaded cynicism.
Any news of whether the unfortunate worker was a union organizer who had been accidentally duct-taped to the entrance floor?
From Wal-Mart’s statement: “We are saddened to report that a gentleman who was working for a temporary agency on our behalf died at the store and a few of our customers were injured.”
Poor guy wasn’t even a regular employee. I hope his family owns that farking Wal-Mart after the lawsuit.
Dying for crappy Chinese landfill is the ultimate in American sacrifice.
I hope that rabble’s kids enjoy their cheap chinese slave-labor toys. HO HO HO!
A new low in Temporary Employment. Graphic shoulda been Heironymus Bosch; folks in his paintings need the clothes, and cheap, and in a New York minute.
Oh boo who, Wisconsin has had 3 deer hunters killed. Far below the early projections.
Lets hear some good news, Did any of the shoppers come away with bargains?
MYIPOD….MyFLATSCREEN….hey whos that guy on the flooMY PSP….
Clearly the elderly greeters that hover near the door need to be armed with tasers so they can better manage the unruly mob.
Ah yes, peace on earth and blah blah blah. Stay classy, New York–you wouldn’t want Philly to outshine you.
Hopefully the trogs who stomped him got their mitts on those sweet Emerson 32″ LCD HDTVs for $399 that Wal*Mart pimped every thirty seconds on all stations sll day Thursday.
What the fuck, America? I moved to the U.S. some ten years ago, from a third-world country. Little did I know that I was moving to another.
First, the economy sinks. Plus the growth in the gap between the rich and poor. And now this? This is the same crazy shit that happens at soccer games in Central America.
Let’s all move to Canada.
Wal-Mart shoppers in Staten Island. The American version machine gun toting terrorists in Mumbai.
I’m not getting anyone anything this Christmas. I don’t want to die a death as horrible at that. In a box store. *shivers*
I am too disgusted to even summon up any cynicism or snark. However, I hold WalMart primarily responsible for failing to safeguard the lives of its employees. I also hope that video surveillance cameras are able to identify each and every one of the individuals involved. They should all have to devote their entire Christmas season to the care and well being of the family of the “murdered” individuial.
[re=187101]maven[/re]: I’m blaming the Jews for Christmas. If they hadn’t killed that Jesus guy, we’d never have to deal with this shit.
Fucking disgusting, incredibly sad. I can guarantee you any concern they might have had for the person they’d just killed was outweighed by their overwhelming need to buy crap before anyone else.
Being trampled to death as a temp worker at Wal-Mart is a truly sad death. God bless this person.
On the plus side, those kids will really enjoy that Wii.
[re=187123]MarieDeGournay[/re]: Let’s be fair, would it really be that bad to die in Bloomingdale’s?
O bosh! those aren’t Jews in that painting, they’re Flems!
This accident is the result of evil WalMart’s evil advertising practices where they bait a 5-mile wide flatscreen plasmatic boob-tube at an incredibly low price but only 2 per store . . . . Tort the tarts to death sez I.
And all this to save $2 on a singing fish wall decoration. This celebrates a birthday I’m told?
Honor the martyrs who died in the heroic effort to jumpstart the American economy. Dudes, your deaths will not have been in vain.
[re=187115]Vanity Smurf[/re]: The dude was 34. Elderly in some lands–Congo, Sudan, Oklahoma…
Stay classy, Long Island.
Triangle Shirtwaist Factory, except in reverse…
Four shoppers, including a 28-year-old pregnant woman, were also taken to local hospitals for injuries sustained in the incident.
Mid-twenties pregos, mixing it up to get their $8 prison-labor assembled jackets and track suits; the last gasp of consumerism before America’s grinding, long slide into Chinese receivership begins in earnest…you stay classy, L.I., NY!
Knowing walmart, they pulled the wounded off to the side so the shopping could continue
I read that one woman miscarried, too, after being trampled. So, umm…brightside? Bristol, you know where to go next time you have an accident…
Jagorev and PTT- Of course those are Jews in the picture, its a crucifixion scene, and they are portrayed the usual way with hooked noses, etc. The remarkable thing is that the editors yanked my original comment from the page! So much for my dreams of this blog being the last vestige of political freedom, and I didn’t even say anything incendiary, only questioned why of all images this is what’s being used for the black friday mob scene.
on xmans morning, every one of those shoppers should be forced to tell their children how they got their gifts.
‘honey, i trampled a man to death to get you this Wii’.
although, in this fucked up county, i’m sure kids would be stoked to hear that.
[re=187193]saucemaster[/re]: i meant ‘xmas’ and ‘country’
OH MY GOD! Wesuck-wesuck-wesuck-wesuck…
[re=187193]saucemaster[/re]: “honey, i trampled a man to death to get you this Wii’.”
Oh, mom! I looooooves you sooooo much. Next Christmas, I wants a ranch in Paraguay. I wants it sooooo bad.
I wonder if they do their usual stunt with contract employees and take out life insurance policies on them so that even in their death they can make their almighty f ing dollar.
I hope Wal-Mart gives his widow A bronze Star for bravery under fire and being the first casualty in the War on Christmas.
[re=187192]maven[/re]: Joke! . . . . though Bosch’s gentiles look like Flems too!!!! And jeez, his powertools and dishwashers . . . .
this is why i only leave the house between Thanksgiving and Christmas if it is absolutely necessary.
[re=187208]Progressive4ever[/re]: Wal-Mart is something like the single largest purchaser of such Peasant Life Insurance policies and has been for years.
Anyone know how to get shoe prints and blood stains off an Xbox?
[re=187118]SloppyCronkite[/re]: Don’t even think about it.
To help this poor fellow up would have been considered a socialist act. U-S-A! U-S-A!
did an international soccer game break out?
Walmart doesn’t buy those life insurance policies. Money is deducted from each employee’s pay. But the beneficiary? Yep, that’s right. Walmart. They are the greediest cocksuckers in major retail, and have driven so many American companies out of business it’s ridiculous. And how about the shootout at the Toys R us in CA? Don’t know the details but two more dead shoppers sure won’t help the economy. I live near a mall and on my way home from a thankfully non-mall errand the line to get into the mall was 1/2 mile long. And I live in one of the most economically depressed areas in the US; Savannah GA.
[re=187233]nutcracker[/re]: I have my doubts about this Wal-mart as the beneficiary of a life insurance policy rumor. you must name a beneficiary when you sign up, and only an idiot would name their fuckin employer as the beneficiary. (of course, one does not need to be too bright to be working at Wal-mart). if you don’t name a beneficiary it would go to your next of kin.
I hate walMart and many of their practices, but let’s not assign something this vile to them, save it for GWB and Cheney.
That’s it. All the kids I know are getting balloon animals for Christmas.
I know what I’m talking about. Wal-mart takes out the policy, the employee signs the form without
being told what it is, and $1 a paycheck is deducted from their pay to subsidize it. It is not a rumor. It is a fact.
[re=187238]azw88[/re]: [re=187233]nutcracker[/re]: I think it’s true that you can’t take out an insurance policy on someone without their permission–otherwise a lot more husbands would die “prematurely.” Wal-Mart is evil for so many other reasons, such as their attempt through an initiative to establish a sovereign state in Inglewood, CA, so they could avoid all environmental laws.
[re=187238]azw88[/re]: it must be like naked short selling. Or naked death selling, in this case.
ugh:
“Other workers were trampled 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.”
I’m sorry, but what the hell is worth that much? Doors were pulled off their hinges. GAWD, that would be me leaving Wal-Mart if I ever ventured in!
[re=187223]Vanity Smurf[/re]: Wal-Mart is something like the single largest purchaser of such Peasant Life Insurance policies and has been for years.
They are without souls and without guilt. I was just hoping they were “protecting their interests” with the temp employees the same way they do with their “real” employees (who, of course, don’t realize that Walmart is waiting at the gates to pick up a check when they break on through to the other side).
Re: the policies–here’s a link to an older article in MSN Money called “Does Your Boss Want You Dead?”
http://moneycentral.msn.com/content/Insurance/P64954.asp
Typically, Wonkette uses some hyperbole for the sake of humorous effect. I honestly thought this was a joke, and it isn’t. The details are slowly coming in about this (apparently, even as the paramedics were trying to help this guy, the paramedics were being pushed around too), and my sad is getting greater and greater.
God save America (no, really).
This is when I wish there were actually a hell so I could be sure every wal-mart executive would be burning there very soon. This is also when I hope a thousand ambulance-chasers line up at this poor man’s house to help him relieve wal-mart of every cent of profit made this retarded holiday season.
Only I live in US America where, with the courts’ help, wal-mart will stall and evade and dissemble until everyone has forgotten this ever happened and then pay a $100 fine, kind of like Exxon when they left a few drops of oil in Alaska.
PS WTF is wrong with you when you arrive at 9pm to a store that opens at 5am? Is cheap shit really that important? If so, I can’t wait until this same mob is starving a year or two from now. They’ll personally reduce the numbers of hungry in this country by trampling themselves at soup kitchens.
[re=187251]Progressive4ever[/re]: Wow, I stand corrected. This really is disgusting, but the (undated) article does say Wal-Mart stopped the practice. They still deserve the corporate death penalty for other sins, such as not providing adequate health insurance.
5:35 pm.
Anybody else die at Walmart?
[re=187266]hobospacejungle[/re]: Are you upset about something?
Today was a tax holiday in South Carolina — for people buying guns. They need to protect their grandchildren from Saxby Chambless.
[re=187276]Sans the Diaper[/re]: My father-in-law died yesterday. So yeah.
Nah, this whole “life insurance policies on the employees” thing is real. I used to work at an evil corporation that sold them. It’s true — not an urban myth. And WalMart is the epitome of evil for profiting from this poor slob’s death.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate-owned_life_insurance
[re=187318]hobospacejungle[/re]: Did he work at WalMart?
[re=187265]facehead[/re]: That whole “my sad is greater and greater”
is making me a little nervous.
[re=187339]Sans the Diaper[/re]: No, retired history professor.
Tomorrow, people will trample each other to death just to get a good deal on a copy of the video of that guy getting trampled to death yesterday.
[re=187352]hobospacejungle[/re]: Did he ever shop at WalMart?
p-Sludge ofTheElves: It’s not posted online?
Sans the Diaper: is that the store where your you got your new huggies?
Perhaps a system of harnesses, ropes, and ceiling tracks is in order. This way, employees can dangle safely above the crowds, in the open air, zooming this way and that as the customers’ needs require.
And hell, while you’re at it why not take all the actual items off the floor and replace them with holograms thereof, plus child-safe deli-ticket machines. This way, customers can stampede into the store at their own risk and duke it out for tickets 1, 2 and 3 on the fucking TV set, which they’ll then pass off to a harnessed employee overhead who subsequently zooms off on the ceiling track to retrieve the item from some kind of loading portico cut high into the WalMart Wall, which, once obtained, is then lowered/dropped down to the customer from a safe distance, humanitarian-aid style.
Everybody wins.
[re=187358]Sans the Diaper[/re]: I’m pretty sure he avoided Wal-Mart like the plague. He was an old-style lefty from the 40s & 50s. Probably more of a Target man.
[re=187382]hobospacejungle[/re]: When is the funeral?
[re=187369]tito_the_builder[/re]: No it’s the store where you
got your new Erector set.
[re=187369]tito_the_builder[/re]: Just kiddin!
(I’m a little sad since Britney Spears and Kevin
Federline broke up. Plus, Madonna and Guy Ritchie)
Plus I’m a little sad since the Bush Presidency is almost
over.
Black Friday; or, “The Day of the Locust”: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8pp14CdBci0
[re=187251]Progressive4ever[/re]: Oh, FUCK.. I stand corrected….
This whole Black Friday Wal-Mart death just strengthens my whole policy of staying away from stores on that day.
Time for stores to rethink this whole fucking earlybird specials, one day only crap….
[re=187389]Sans the Diaper[/re]: Family will decide tomorrow when to hold the funeral. It’ll be a graveside service, like they always show at the end of police procedural shows. Probably will be Tuesday or Wednesday.
Suddenly I understand what Muslin Barry Obama’s dear Rev. Wright meant.
I’m sick of this stupidity and I hope Wal-Mart and every other retailer who participates in this Black Friday bullshit is sued for their very last dime by the worker’s family. While I’m at it, I further hope that every single American consumer who destroyed their last shred of human dignity by trying to buy more frivolous crap on Black Friday chokes on a deep-fried twinkie on the way to dialysis treatment for their obesity induced diabetes.
Happy Thanksgiving mutherfuckers.
That is all.
[re=187407]rambone[/re]: P.S. Yes, I am drunk. Drunk and angry.
They call them “doorbusters”, early bird specials. Maybe all the guns were 50% off before 6 a.m., for the bitters?
Trampled to death by shoppers at your temp gig, what a way to go.
See where consumerism has landed us? I’m really ready for it ALL to collapse, we deserve it.
We really do.
So what I’ve heard is this:
The crowd trampled this poor fellow. The other workers tried to help him but were beaten back by the crowd, literally beaten as punches were thrown. After it became clear that the man was dead, they tried to close the store down, at least temporarily, to get this sorted out as best they could, but were again met with threats from angry shoppers who refused to be ushered out. AND YET, after all this, what really shocked me, really blew me away, was that these crazed slavering man-beast customers…
PAID FOR THEIR PURCHASES.
They had essentially seized control of the Wal-Mart by force of violence in precisely the way looting crowds might. But they insisted on WAITING ON LINE TO HAVE THEIR PURCHASES RUNG UP.
I guess it makes sense, in a way. If they had meant to walk off with whatever goods they could carry after murdering and maiming the minimum-wage staff, it hardly needed to be the day after Thanksgiving. That sort of thing works pretty much just as well every day.
Today will leave Al-Qaeda quivering in fear. You need to die for your God and 72 virgins. We are willing to die for 50% off of a Hannah Montana microphone.
You are not even in our league.
I, for one, am just glad to see that we are taking the economy seriously enough to resort to a little human sacrifice.
[re=187407]rambone[/re]: Hey, I’m just wondering when it became acceptable to assume that all horrible people everywhere are fat, always. Like, you could have had something about these people being greedy or uncaring, but no, there were just three different slams about being fat (“deep-fried twinkie”, “dialysis treatment”, and “obesity induced diabetes”) and nothing else.
It’s a sign of the End Times, according to Bro. Stair, America’s craziest evangelist! (For real: http://www.overcomerministry.org/)
Zhu Bajie
[re=187238]azw88[/re]: Well, if you need the job bad, you might do it.
Zhu Bajie
[re=187428]Lionel Hutz Esq.[/re]: More like quivering with laughter. It’s by provoking Americans to indulge their worst impulses that they hope to win.
Zhu Bajie
[re=187431]Godot[/re]: Fat = metaphor for greed.
And even if all horrible people are fat, that does not imply that all fat people are horrible.
Let’s face it, this is a store that sells guns’n'bibles, but not gansta rap, so it was only bound to happen. NOBODY, I mean NOBODY has ever died in a gansta rap stampede
The guy probably said Happy Holidays and not Merry Christmas.
I’m sure the Walmart board was horrified at the news until they realized the guy was a temp worker: no worker’s comp or severance needed. Same situation if you fall off the loading dock or are run over by a forklift.
My stepsister works at that same WalMart. Its just as sad as you think. If you try to take unauthorized overtime (i.e., the only kind), they make you write a letter stating what you did to avoid getting fired….and then they fire you. Overtime costs money and full-time employees often attract things like “benefits” and “employment rights.” Its a disgusting company, even if Hillary Clinton was on the board.
[re=187460]hobospacejungle[/re]: [re=187431]Godot[/re]: Yeah, what hobospacejungle said. Stupid Venn diagrams.
Plus, I was hungry so I kept thinking about food (bacon, mostly).
[re=187381]goodluck/badluck[/re]: If these wage slaves of the future were allowed to defecate on unruly shoppers, I’d be much more optimistic about said future.
[re=187239]Cape Clod[/re]: Balloon animals are 50% off for the first 100 through the door tomorrow at 5:00 a.m. Don’t let anyone stand in your way. Those kids will savor the gifts all the more, knowing you were willing to kill for them.
I’m in Australia, so our rushes are, “Oh my GOD, there are lots of people in the store instead of being able to walk through the store uninhibited!” Shit. I’m poor, so my family is getting cookies this year that I’ve made by hand. Though, to be fair, my cookies are pretty fucking awesome.
I feel so bad for that guy’s family. What a Christmas they’re getting out of all this, huh?
Between having their teens murder random Hispanics for laffs and trampling store employees to save $.05 cents on a useless toy, Long Island is not really doing that great right now.
I’m all for suing Wal-Mart, but is there some way for this man’s family (as well as the other injured) to sue the people in the mob? Or at least let us publicly shame them. That’s what makes America great!
The irony of is that “shoppers” were irate” because the store had to be shut down for two hours for conducting an investigation.
From Jamaica into the Long Island…May the blessed soul rest in heaven!
Hey, I WORK at a Wal-Mart (not on the Doorbusters shift, thank you Jesus) and next year, I’m coming armed. None of that pig-mob is getting my ass, that’s for goddamn sure.
[re=187428]Lionel Hutz Esq.[/re]: I laughed
[re=187421]Godot[/re]: Unlike crazed European socialist mobs, crazed American capitalist mobs are perfectly willing to kill and destroy yet are unwilling to question the exchange of money for desired goods at a price set by the seller…
[re=187428]Lionel Hutz Esq.[/re]: yeah, but Hannah Montana is kind of hot, in a sexy, pedophilish sort of way, and she may still be a virgin!
[re=187421]Godot[/re]: That sickened me the most, that people in the store were pissed off when the store tried closing even after they know what happened!
Neon Trotsky: this is what the American capitalists call: “freedom to sell and be sold” at any cost!
[re=187505]napalmnacey[/re]: Fur Realz, the guy was just a temp (I believe he was mid thirties), probably just trying to make a few extra bucks (perhaps to buy Christmas gifts?).
When the videos of this come out (eventually), America is gonna look so third world — African countries will have concerts to raise funds for added security guards at Wal-Marts in the US.
I’ve been thinking.
Was this a SuperCenter or one of the regular sized?
Hans the Binker: right-sized; you should know!
http://www.nydailynews.com/money/2008/11/29/2008-11-29_day_after_stampede__shopping_li_walmart_.html
At least they gathered in Aisle 6 last night and lit a candle.
I mean, I think that was right.
Right as far as etiquette.
[re=187431]Godot[/re]: Being a bad person and being fat aren’t linked. Being a Walmart shopper and being fat do.
Like we give a hoot about if somebody that probably voted for McCain died. Screw them and their family.
[re=187431]Godot[/re]: Ah, lighten up, Francis.
And lose a few pounds while you’re at it.
(Heh. See what I did there?)
I keep telling people that every Wal-Mart sits on a Hellmouth, but no one ever listens.
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