Attention Wal-Mart Shoppers

[rowyn]

What bothers me most about this story is the section at the end. Where the police talk about pressing charges against Wal-Mart for not hiring more security, and Wal-Mart faults the police for not having more patrols out.

...

Shouldn't someone be blaming the people that actually trampled this poor man to death? The ones who tore the doors of the hinges? The ones who stomped on him, ignored him, didn't try to help him up, shoved the people in front of them so that they would have no choice but to rush forward heedlessly as well?

American need to learn how to queue. :(

Comments

[verminiusrex.livejournal.com]

The police are actually viewing video to see if they can identify any of the trampling crowd. The big problem will be establishing individual fault. In a crowd like that if you are at the front with people behind pushing, you keep moving for fear of being trampled yourself.

Not right? Of course. The Wal-Mart should have controlled the crowd better, making them line up and taking them inside in much smaller groups. I was telling someone else that when you have a potential mob like this, you have to take control early and kick out anyone who gives you attitude or breaks the rules. The threat of "follow the rules or lose your place in line" can do wonders.

I'm hoping at the very least that there is a company wide policy that comes out of this for crowd control. My mother has gone when they have the $200 laptops or whatever that draw a crowd, and they control the line and bring them inside in groups of 20 or so. I remember last year during one of those sales a manager didn't think there needed to be any control like that, threw open the doors and another stampede lead to injuries.

In brief, a mob is a crowd with many heads and no brains. Another way to say it, a person is smart, people are stupid.

[genkitty.livejournal.com]

Criminally, the shoppers are at fault, but prosecuting it will be a nightmare. Civilly, it's easier: Walmart, imo, is negligent on the basis of their crowd control measures/lack thereof. verminiusrex is right about taking control early and holding it. People fall into herd mentality if there's people there to encourage it. Proper line-markers and staff showing customers the line do wonders. I've handled crowds of 200-600 furries by myself when I was running FC reg. They're not quite as rabid as black friday shoppers, but it's no picnic either :)

[elusivetiger.livejournal.com]

Hell yes - one of our biggest problems is that we often feel someone must always be blamed, and it's always a corporation or government.

The ability to look in the mirror, an essential tool for individuals of any society who do not wish to be governed like cattle, is flagging.

[terrycloth.livejournal.com]

(1) Mob behavior is predictable, and individuals in the mob are less than entirely in control of their own actions. Not saying you should let them off, but it's kind of like blaming a tiger for eating the person who crawls into its cage. You still kill the tiger, of course.

(2) The people doing the trampling aren't large pools of money for lawsuits to leech from, so it isn't interesting which of THEM is to blame.

[wildcard-47.livejournal.com]

Shouldn't someone be blaming the people that actually trampled this poor man to death?
I did hear that police are analyzing tapes of the security footage so they can attempt to press charges against some (or all?) of the stampeders. But yeah, the oversight of personal responsibility here is astounding. Being overzealous about shopping to the point of mindless stampedes, when all that's at stake is a discount on a new TV -- I weep for society's future.