Legal Commentary

Savages At The Gates: Walmart Shoppers Stomp Store Security Guard To Death On Long Island

Jdimytai Damour of Jamaica, Queens a 34 year old man was stomped to death as alleged shoppers stormed into a Walmart store to get at early morning "Black Friday" sales.

The facts are easy. There is so much blame to go around it is hard to say just who is really responsible. In blamiing Walmart we in fact fail to recognize that there is a personal responsibility that is just missing from the people who went to the store this morning.

Kmart had people at a frenzy, they had too few security guards and they had no security lines. They also failed to understand how people can get together become such fools.

People lined up outside decided they had waited long enough for the store to open at five in the morning so the people in the back pushed and the others pushed and the door came off the hinge and a sea of flesh ran over the guy who was supposed to stop them and killed him. Dead, a human life exstinguished so some neaderthal could get at a video game 2 minutes sooner.

As workers and police asked the throng to step out of the store now crime scene, they just kept on shopping. THEY KEPT SHOPPING!!! A detective on the scene called the scene "Complete Chaos".

The Walmart press flack said the usual horse hockey that hacks have to say. From down in Arkansas he said:

"The safety and security of our customers and associates are our top priority." Yeah I bet. It is there right after saving the bonus, getting more money to put fuel in the company jet and wondering who will win the SEC Football championship.

Oh yeah, back to blame:

Then you have the stompers. They just kept stomping on the guy. I am told they couldn't have stopped walking because you had people pushing from behind and they had to flow into the store or be stomped themsleves. That makes sense. Too bad I wasn't there with my friends George and Pete. 1100 lbs of bodies and muscle will put a stop to any crowd. IN ITS TRACKS. Which leads me back to Kmart. Where the hell were the baracades? The Jersey Blocks? I know that this kids death is probably going to go down to a Worker's Comp. claim, but they were so, so ridiculously unready that it ought to rise to the type of gross negligence that allows it to go to civil suit.

Then you have the Pushers. The true jackasses in the back of the line who just had to get in. I bet they thought it was hysterical. Push on in and get those sales. It's always funny until it gets someone gets "KILLED"!! This is why you teach children to wait their turns. This is why you have to tell kids don't run in the hall. This is why you have to disipline kids who don't learn. Because when they become adults, they are still untrained juveniles.

Maybe every person who walks into that, or any tri-state area Walmart should have to pay an entrance fee of a buck to give to the estate of Jdimytai Damour before they are allowed to get at those amazing sales.

I have an idea. If I were this family's lawyer I would look at those Security tapes and I would match up the sales receipts with the pictures on the tapes. I would then bring a lawsuit against everyone who I could match up. Even if I don't get them all, just a few would likely stop this stupid behavior or at least put a little justice into the situation. Let them find the other idiots that killed a man today because they never learned or at least couldn't practice simple civil behavior.

Full post as published by That Lawyer Dude on November 28, 2008 (boomark / email).