Black Friday Madness

[gdjoslin]

We went to Walmart today. The crowds were very light. The wife was looking for a WII.... Like she is going to find one after Black Friday. Walmart was out so we went to BestBuy. Crowds were also very light. She had her choice of about 15 in the store. I was very surprised...

[Dwayne]

From the reports from my family, it was mostly the electronic dept. getting hit. They had marked down a lot of items in the areas that were not busy on the food side. Glad you got your Wii, my uncle was trying to get one and they were sold out Friday at our Target I heard. I just don't think they stocked that many items at the Madness prices.

A good barometer for me is the traffic here for this weekend. It was notably lighter than last year.

Dwayne

[penny3333]

I do hope the surveillance cameras caught the people responsible for the man's death. How ridiculous. This says too much about our society. I avoided the malls like the plague this weekend. I did go to Wal-Mart on Sunday to buy a few groceries and the store was empty. There was a stabing at the Wal-Mart in Lawrence county. It didn't make the papers, so I guess the victims weren't hurt too badly.

[sparks1093]

I did it backward, I shopped online on Black Friday and visited Walmart on online Monday (or whatever it's called)

[Nadine]

The more I think about the WalMart issue, the more I believe that the entire blame should fall on WalMart.

If you think about it, there were 2,000 people surging forward. The person who knocked down the clerk, and the rest of the people in the front of the pack, had no control over the surge. Once the clerk was knocked down, I doubt anyone in the initial rush could have stopped to lend assistance without being trampled themselves.

It was a terrible tragedy. It appears that the way to avoid this would be to discontinue these ridiculous sales. Half the time the store only has 10 of an item and they know that once the customers are in the store, they will buy other things if that particular item is gone. It's an advertising gimmic that cost a person his life.

[Dave]

As with most of these things, Walmart will offer a settlement to the guy's family and they'll eventually reach agreement - particularly given they are from Haiti and will most likely see an offer that most of us would consider an insult to be a gold mine. It's a shame, but that is the reality of this sad event. Money talks.

I can see the argument that Walmart bears responsibility. But still, even if the crowd was a tsunami that couldn't stop they knew what happened after the fact, and many still went on to shop and then threw fits when they kicked them out of the store and closed. They may not be criminally liable but they ought to bear some shame for their overall conduct - before, during, and after.

[gdjoslin]

Wal-mart will bear and get a lot of blame. However the crowd is to blame also. I hope they can look at the tapes and press charges on some of the people. Don't let people act like that and then blame it on a sale... arrest them.

[Dave]

I just read they chose the guy who died to man the doors because of his size - 270 pounds and 6'5".

[penny3333]

The autopsy proved he was trampled to death.

[drlivingston]

I know this is after the fact but I have been on a cruise since Thanksgiving Day ... The only way that WalMart should have handled the fatal fiasco was to shut down all store operations at the time of the criminal activity. That would have nullified all of the attempts of the offenders to be the first to reach the Tickle Wii Elmo Dolls....