Update: More detail here, including market-reassuring news that the blood-spattered horde kept on shopping.
Some shoppers who had seen the stampede said they were shocked. One of them, Kimberly Cribbs of Queens, said the crowd had acted like “savages.” Shoppers behaved badly even as the store was being cleared, she recalled.
“When they were saying they had to leave, that an employee got killed, people were yelling, ‘I’ve been on line since yesterday morning,’ ” Ms. Cribbs told The Associated Press. “They kept shopping.”
7 comments:
God. What a terrible story. A horror story: Wal-mart, bargain hunting ritual, Black Friday - freaky!
Apart from this poor bloke's death (he wasn't even one of the 'hunters' but some innocent bugger going about his daily work), apart from that, I also find this sort of mindless buying and 'hunting' ugly and inexplicable. Does it actually come from some kind of primitive hunting behaviour? Euripides Bacchae comes to mind (crazed women tearing men limb from limb). And all in the name of a bargain, the hunt for useless stuff. God help us!
I know, the story is just unbelievable, Di.
I'm just trying to visualise the happy shopper-bots at the checkout, having just killed some poor sucker on a minimum wage, merrily ringing up their purchases. Did anyhting go through their minds? Was it called off given the tragedy? what happened afterwards?
*squish*
"Oh darn! That blood's stained my Manolos -- good thing there are more on special today!"
I watch in fascinated horror as the hordes push open the Myer doors after Xmas each year. I shudder at the thought of being in that crowd. I do my Xmas shopping early so that I can avoid that sort of thing.
That poor man. What a horrible way to die.
I'm still gobsmacked 2 days later. And when you read the fine detail, it turns out that Wal-mart is notoriously anti-union, so there's no voice for worker safety in there. There were no barricades, safety fences etc.
And yeah Di, its like watching some other species. I always feel like David Attenborough should be commenting on these shopper rampages.
A bounty of bargain hunters.
Nice one Tim. Perhaps a 'manslaughter of mark-down multitudes'?
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