How Wal-Mart Could Have Prevented the Death

by Pat Healy, Thu Dec 04, 2008 at 10:45:42 AM EST

I'm outraged about the death of a Wal-Mart employee on Black Friday.  And I've fumed about it -- offline -- to my friends at Wake Up Walmart.  But for the sake of this diary and out of respect for the deceased, 34 year-old Jdimytai Damour, I'm just going to offer some constructive ideas for how this tragic death could have been prevented.

1. Managing the crowd.  Wal-Mart took a very nonchalant approach to the massive crowd gathering outside its store and as a result, things got out of hand.  It had no crowd control and no order to the madness brewing outside its door.

2. Respecting its employees.  Wal-Mart had no one trained to handle crowds and so they appointed Mr. Damour, who had been hired by a private temp agency to do maintenance work, to deal with the crowd.  Reports are surfacing that "Damour was asphyxiated last Friday while trying to shield a pregnant shopper from the throngs of bargain hunters."

3. Not putting blood in the waters.  Wal-Mart invited a mad rush by advertising about the "blitz" on deals and showcasing "door-buster" sales. They routinely show ads of frenzied mobs outside their stores. This encourages civil unrest and violent behavior. Wal-Mart needs to act more responsibly.

Wal-Mart's first and only objective is to make money.  It's why they don't blink an eye about outsourcing jobs to China, polluting waterways, paving marshland, steamrolling local economies or busting unions.  But worker rights and safety matter and Wal-Mart needs to treat its employees better.  

This death didn't have to happen.

Tags: Black Friday, Jdimytai Damour, Wal-Mart (all tags)

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9 Comments

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Re: How Wal-Mart Could Have Prevented the Death

This has been my burning issue of the month.

Walmart even had a last minute chance to avoid this tragedy. Reports indicate that the crowd of savages was growing impatient and unruly right before opening. At that point, sending a temp who was not a trained security personnel was a dereliction of duty on part of the Walmart managers. They should have called the cops and dispersed the crowd and asked them to reconvene in a proper line.

Walmart and other stores feed into this embarrassing spectacle every year and the regular folk line up like crazed zombies from Dawn of the Dead(the remake version).

And once the crowd trampled a guy to death, the store should have closed right away to catch people in the mob that were caught trampling the guy and whoever else was engaged in pushing. It would have been easier to match the faces on the tapes if this was done back then. Now cops are saying it may be too late to catch anyone.

by Pravin 2008-12-04 11:25AM | 0 recs
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Re: How Wal-Mart Could Have Prevented the Death

should we analyze every accident in this country and blame the car manufactures or some deep pocket companies over it?

The man jumped to cover a pregnant lady , who while fully knowing she was pregnant, knowing the crowd was restless and going to charge in, decided to go ahead and join the melee.  

if anyone should be sued it should be her,for jeopardizing a fetus causing the death of this man.

But frankly, it was the crowds fault - people like you and me and not walmart.

by MumbaiBurns 2008-12-04 01:39PM | 0 recs
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Re: How Wal-Mart Could Have Prevented the Death

Actually I blame the crowd too. I have been railing against frivolous lawsuits with some of my diaries to the consternation of the pro-lawyer crowd. BUt WALMART should have known better in this case. It was only a matter of time until something like this happened. If a company exposes employees to unreasonable danger, then that company should be liable. The company had ample chance to call off the opening or get more security once they saw the savages getting impatient.

by Pravin 2008-12-04 02:14PM | 0 recs
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Re: How Wal-Mart Could Have Prevented the Death

if the doors were to open automatically . we would have had a dead pregnant lady and not their employee. Because the mob was still going charge in.

by MumbaiBurns 2008-12-04 07:44PM | 0 recs
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Re: How Wal-Mart Could Have Prevented the Death

I think the issue here is you shouldn't advertise an item you don't have.. when a supermarket has a sale and they are out they give you a raincheck.. walmart should do the same.. if they advertise it they should have it otherwise it turns into a competitive sport

but i do think people here just hate walmart so much they are singling them out... its ONE DEATH..lets keep it in perspective please..i mean how many people are going to die from malnutrition in the US today? plenty...

death happens...accidents happen..

did it have to happen? no

should walmart and other stores do things differently? i think so. if you advertise something you gotta have it for everyone that shows up

but i don't see why people get so obsessed with this.. and why only blame walmart? how about the mob? how about the people that actually did the trampling? their responsbility seems rationalized away with the "they are zombies" and "they are a mob" bits..

by obama4presidente 2008-12-04 12:10PM | 0 recs
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Re: How Wal-Mart Could Have Prevented the Death

I think the mob should be arrested too. But Walmart is clearly negligent because they exposed a temp work to a dangerous situation. If i was the manager, i would have just called the cops until those morons calmed down. I wouldn't have opened the doors. That is assuming I was foolish enough not to organize a line in the first place.

It is one death that was TOTALLY unavoidable. This was gross negligence on part of the management. There have been other injuries over the years. A death was bound to happen. The whole thing was not a freak accident. It could have been avoided using basic common sense.

by Pravin 2008-12-04 12:23PM | 0 recs
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Re: How Wal-Mart Could Have Prevented the Death

There are plenty of deaths that are avoidable my friend... tens of thousands of them today..

Personally I would just legislate that if stores advertise something they have to have it or give you a raincheck..

But I find it hard to believe that the outrage about this isn't more about Walmart than anything else..

I don't like Walmart and I have shopped there two times in my life for a total expenditure of less than $10

But how can one be shocked this happened.. they advertise stuff at really low prices and tell you they only have 5 of them.. people gather in front of store and spend hours in the cold freezing..when the doors open its you get there first or you are flat out of luck

You know what this black friday doorbuster business is? Its our running of the bulls (Pamplona)..

It really is..

by obama4presidente 2008-12-04 01:02PM | 0 recs
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Re: How Wal-Mart Could Have Prevented the Death

Now if one of the crowd got trampled, I would say Walmart is less liable because the people were stupid enough to be part of that crowd. I even questeioned the sanity of some pregnant women lining up in a diary i created earlier. They had a choice. THe temp did not have a choice. The management placed him in that position. He doesnt have experience with crowds on an annual basis. Walmart had to know of the risks. Even the cops said security was inadequate.

by Pravin 2008-12-04 02:16PM | 0 recs
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I don't like Wal Mart.

But I'm not blaming them for this.

Lots of businesses have Black Friday sales like this.  This is nothing new.  The crowd behaved poorly.

This was a tragedy, but I don't think it is necessary to assign blame every time something like this happens.

by psychodrew 2008-12-04 05:52PM | 0 recs

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