I went to Wal Mart in Mountain Home, Arkansas at 5:00 on Black Friday. Really, it's the only thing to do in that town. That, and my MIL had called us and asked us to pick up a digital camera for my SIL.

The store is open 24 hours, so there was no rush to get inside. The door greeters were handing out maps of the store with the locations of the various pallets of specials. There was at least one store employee stationed at each pallet, more at the most popular items. When it was time to unwrap the pallets, the store employees helped hand items to people who couldn't or wouldn't get into the fray. Everyone was polite and mindful, even though the store was packed and it was hard to move around.

Richard, the Wal-Mart in Fairfax was crawling with Fairfax police, not rent-a-cops.

I still don't understand how you'd want to kill the lawyers (ambulance chasers) if your loved one(s) was in this situation, and you'd let the company off the hook. It boggles my mind.

I didn't say I'd let the company off the hook. But the animals that trampled this poor man are the responsible ones. Just because Wal-Mart has deep pockets doesn't mean they should be sued for anything that happens on their property. Just because animals have no shred of humanity or personal responsibility left in them does not mean it suddenly becomes the fault of the faceless, rich corporation.

Fairfax Co. having police at the Fair Lakes Wal-Mart was surely not a decision made by Wal-Mart. Last I checked, local businesses don't decide where to send police on patrol. It's good they were there. But you know that, if a cop had been trampled there, his family would also be suing Wal-Mart. Basically, there's nothing Wal-Mart could have done to stop this. How many rent-a-cops would they have had to hire? Maybe they'd be better off doubling their prices on black Friday to ward off the large crowds of losers.

poppycock

You don't hear about people dying at Who concerts anymore do you?

Wal-Mart and the crowd of animals share responsibility. The police are working on identifying the appropriate animals to prosecute (criminal charges) and Wal-Mart is being sued (civil charges) for their negligence. What's wrong with that?

I think yesterday was the 30th anniversary of that. However, while they did away with general admisison for rock concerts for a while, we do have them again in the U.S. and they never did away with them in Europe.

People get trampled at large events all the time. It doesn't happen as often in the U.S., but mostly because we don't have anything like the crowds many other countries have, either for sporting or religious events. And this Wal-Mart thing didn't even approach the scale of a small rock concert. 500-600 people is what I heard. We had crowds like that when I was playing pee-wee football in Texas. So, if a crowd that small can do something like that, which no one predicted, what was Wal-Mart supposed to do? Hand out bracelets when the number of people in line was smaller than the fire marshal's max. occupancy number for the store? Bad things happen to good people eveyr day. It doesn't mean someone is always entitled to sue for it.

What's wrong with it is that the animals responsible will not be sued because they don't have pockets as deep as Wal-Mart's. Sue the rich guy, he can always pay.

The comment regarding the concert goers behavior is an interesting one. I was at two Jimmy Buffet concerts in the last year and have to say they (security) have everything well in hand. As soon as anything seemed inappropriate behavior, the security was all over it. I was amazed at how quickly they moved and didn't mess with any discussion issues. If you were not where you were supposed to be or not behaving properly or appeared to have had too much to drink, it was Bye Bye, no questions asked or answered.

I don't think this is comparable to a concert at all. When I've had front row seats for a concert, I knew I could tailgate in the parking lot until the lights went down and then calmly walk to my seat. If someone was in it, I had them tossed. With these shopping rushes, similar to the bridal gown sale day at Filene's Basement, there is no reserved anything. It's pure mob rush to be first. I've only seen that at a few general admission concerts in Europe, but there weren't enough people there to make it into a problem.

I will only comment briefly on this.

Walmart did contract Security, or rent-a-cops as some of you put it for a lot of their locations. I'll hold on my comments on that one, and not degrade what it is you do Rick.

Each District has their own safety and security measures.

The employee that was trampled did not unlock the doors, the crowd pushed the locked electronic sliding doors off their frames.

What would have happened had the store's doors remained closed?

Do you think this was the only store that had that many people waiting to get in? It wasn't, and you aren't reading about this happening anywhere else, what does that say about the patrons of this particular store.

Sueing Walmart, ehh, whatever, it happens every day. Now with that said, I don't know if I agree going after them because of the advertising, that sounds a little weak.

I do not work for Walmart, or this store for that matter.

Bill

I am not disagreeing with you Tony. I think it could have been prevented, but I also think some of the blame lies with the patrons.

On the flip side, how do you think those people would have felt being treated like cattle, which in hindsight, is exactly what they should have been treated like.

I agree with you as well. Both are to blame. Some think Wal_Mart deserves no punishment at all.

edit: mind you - if it's true that they pushed locked doors off their frames to start the stampede, I guess the blame lies more and more with the animals.

I've been apart of the Black Friday crowds for the last three years. When the lines I have been in have started to move, people have calmly moved forward until they are in the door. No one pushed or shoved. Could Wal-Mart have done a better job to help prevent this? Yes. Who is mostly to blame for this? The lowest rung of society that stampeded to save a dollar at fckn Wal-Mart.

being liberal politically correct, NY commentators have to be careful being called racist.

It seems like this happens at least once every year. Typically I am totally against law suits, but here sorry Wal Mart you lose.

There are easy ways to organize this situation. They choose not to do it so they can get that glory shot of everyone running madly into the store.

Even I, with a remedial amount of knowledge, could organize it so that everyone could enter the store safely and in an orderly manner. If it were someone close to me I'd take as much out of Wal Mart as I could.

Wal-Mart. Lots of folks are going to be outraged that this family is picking on such a sweet company.

If this tragedy happened to one of my family members, I'd press for both criminal and civil charges against these animals. I'd make them poor and imprisioned. I'd go after Wal-Mart, too (civil). You just presume that only Wal-Mart will be punished. Maybe that's true, but we really don't know how this will really shake out.

And this "sue the rich guy" comment is way off target. Corporations are not "guys." Corporations shield their officers from liability that an individual "guy" is not shielded from. If you cannot punish them for criminal behavior, you're stuck with either going after them on civil charges or shrugging your shoulders and going away mad.

At night, the Wal Mart near me has an armed, uniformed Wichita police officer that stands near the front door. I'd bet money that he's an off-duty cop being paid by Wal-Mart for security duty. Several cops (not wanna-bes) standing near the front door of this Wal-Mart could have done wonders.

If this happened at a local garage sale and the seller didn't have adequate homeowner's insurance or deep pockets, do you think there'd be a huge lawsuit? Lawsuits against judgment-proof people are not worth the time of many attorneys. I'm not saying Wal-Mart is totally innocent. I'm just saying a jackpot payout to the victim's family will do nothing to prevent this in the future. And you know no shoppers will go to jail over this. Will not happen. Charges maybe, conviction unlikely, jailtime no chance in hell.

I remember that road rage accident on the GW Pkwy. about 10 yrs. ago that killed a few people and the two drivers went away for 25 yrs. Now that would get people's attention and encourage them to behave a little more like humans. Suing the rich corp. will only encourage more lawsuits anytime anyone gets hurt while not on their own property.

Rick, I know you cannot fathom a capitalist corporation ever being responsible for damages to innocent victims, but have you ever seen the movie "A Civil Action"?

Rent it...tell me what you think. Both as to how companies AND plaintiffs' lawyers act.