Wal-Mart Stampede Death

UPDATE, May 6, 2009: Wal-Mart Pays $2M Fine to Avoid Charges in Trampling Death
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These people aren't shoppers. They're savages.

From FOX News:

Black Friday took a grim turn when a New York Wal-Mart employee died after bargain hunters broke down the doors to the store, pushing him to the ground.

The 34-year-old male employee was pronounced dead an hour after shoppers breached the doors to the shopping center in Valley Stream, Long Island, about 5 a.m. Friday and knocked him down, police said.

"He was bum-rushed by 200 people," Jimmy Overby, the man's 43-year-old co-worker, told the New York Daily News. "They took the doors off the hinges. He was trampled and killed in front of me. They took me down too ... I literally had to fight people off my back."

A 28-year-old pregnant woman was also taken in for observation and three other shoppers suffered minor injuries during the incident, police said. The pregnant woman and the unborn baby were reported to be OK, said Sgt. Anthony Repalone, a Nassau County police spokesman.

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. in Bentonville, Ark., closed the store in Valley Stream for several hours after the stampede. It reopened shortly after 1 p.m.

...Police said about 2,000 people had gathered outside the doors before the Wal-Mart opened at the suburban location about 20 miles east of Manhattan. A crowd pushed the man to the ground at 5:03 a.m., three minutes after the store opened, leaving a metal portion of the door crumpled like an accordion.

Nassau County police spokesman Lt. Michael Fleming described the scene as "utter chaos." "This crowd was out of control," he said.

Criminal charges were possible in the case, but Fleming said it would be difficult to identify individual shoppers. Authorities were reviewing surveillance video.

The industry's largest retail group said the incident was rare.

"We are not aware of any other circumstances where a retail employee has died working on the day after Thanksgiving," said Ellen Davis, a spokeswoman for the National Retail Federation.

I don't think the issue here is that there was inadequate security.

The issue is how these people, these shoppers, showed no regard for life and the safety of others.

This man's death isn't Wal-Mart's fault. The economy isn't to blame. It isn't George Bush's fault.

The man was trampled to death because people acted like brutes. They killed him.