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Worker dies at Long Island, NY Wal-Mart after being trampled in Black Friday stampede
Updated Friday, November 28th 2008, 10:46 PM

A Wal-Mart worker died early Friday after an "out-of-control" mob of frenzied shoppers smashed through the Long Island store's front doors and trampled him, police said.

The Black Friday stampede plunged the Valley Stream outlet into chaos, knocking several employees to the ground and sending others scurrying atop vending machines to avoid the horde.

When the madness ended, 34-year-old Jdimytai Damour was dead and four shoppers, including a woman eight months pregnant, were injured.

"He was bum-rushed by 200 people," said Wal-Mart worker Jimmy Overby, 43.

"They took the doors off the hinges. He was trampled and killed in front of me.

"They took me down, too ... I didn't know if I was going to live through it. I literally had to fight people off my back," Overby said.

Damour, a temporary maintenance worker from Jamaica, Queens, was gasping for air as shoppers continued to surge into the store after its 5 a.m. opening, witnesses said.

Even officers who arrived to perform CPR on the trampled worker were stepped on by wild-eyed shoppers streaming inside, a cop at the scene said.

"They pushed him down and walked all over him," Damour's sobbing sister, Danielle, 41, said. "How could these people do that?

"He was such a young man with a good heart, full of life. He didn't deserve that."

Damour's sister said doctors told the family he died of a heart attack.

His cousin, Ernst Damour, called the circumstances "completely unacceptable."

"His body was a stepping bag with so much disregard for human life," Ernst Damour, 37, said. "There has to be some accountability."

Roughly 2,000 people gathered outside the Wal-Mart's doors in the predawn darkness.

Chanting "push the doors in," the crowd pressed against the glass as the clock ticked down to the 5 a.m. opening.

Sensing catastrophe, nervous employees formed a human chain inside the entrance to slow down the mass of shoppers.

It didn't work.

The mob barreled in and overwhelmed workers.

"They were jumping over the barricades and breaking down the door," said Pat Alexander, 53, of Crown Heights, Brooklyn. "Everyone was screaming. You just had to keep walking on your toes to keep from falling over."

After the throng toppled Damour, his fellow employees had to fight through the crowd to help him, police said.

Witness Kimberly Cribbs said shoppers acted like "savages."

"When they were saying they had to leave, that an employee got killed, people were yelling, 'I've been on line since Friday morning!'" Cribbs said. "They kept shopping."

When paramedics arrived, Damour's condition was grave.

"They were pumping his chest, trying to bring him back, and there was nothing," said Dennis Smokes, 36, a Wal-Mart worker.

Damour was taken to Franklin Hospital and pronounced dead at 6:03 a.m.

Hank Mullany, president of Wal-Mart's northeast division, said the company took extraordinary safety precautions.

"We expected a large crowd this morning and added additional internal security, additional third-party security, additional store associates and we worked closely with the Nassau County police," he said in a statement.

"We also erected barricades. Despite all of our precautions, this unfortunate event occurred."

The 28-year-old pregnant woman and three other shoppers were taken to area hospitals with minor injuries, police said.

In a news conference after the incident, Nassau County police spokesman Lt. Michael Fleming described the crowd as "out of control" and the scene as "utter chaos." He said Wal-Mart did not have enough security onhand.

Fleming said criminal charges were possible but that it would be difficult to identify individual shoppers in surveillance videos.

Items on sale at the Wal-Mart store included a $798 Samsung 50-inch Plasma HDTV, a Bissel Compact Upright Vacuum for $28 and Men's Wrangler Tough Jeans for $8.

The Long Island store reopened at 1 p.m. and was packed within minutes.

"I look at these people's faces and I keep thinking one of them could have stepped on him," said one employee. "How could you take a man's life to save $20 on a TV?"

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Police Investigate Fatal Trampling At Wal-Mart
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Ah, so now it's Wal Marts fault for not haivng enough security?  What happened to personal responsibility?

deltadarlin wrote on Nov 29^th, 2008 at 11:39am:


I couldn't agree with you more. This is a display of personal greed and selfishness honed to fine edge.........

And of course it's the "greedy corporation's" fault.

In 1979, my senior year of high school,  I was working in a large dept store (Bamberger's, part of the Macy's group). I was seriously considering some kind of fashion marketing field. I had 2 years of fashion design and marketing and was heading in that direction. The months and long hours around Christmas changed my life direction. It was and always has been utter chaos. I wonder what would happen if the sales weren't all stacked (or made to look that way) on one day. The news this morning said the best deals actually will be in the coming weeks. I'll wait for that or stick with internet!

Charlotte

I refer to myself during this season, as a Retail widow. Although Gil is retired from good ole Ma Bell, he chooses to keep working........well, he signed a non-compete clause, so he's in Retail........
It's a different world out there. People at this time of year, begin to panic. In gil's case, he is Gen Mgr of a Framing and Art Supply store. People are upset when he tells his customers their gift will take 2 weeks to complete..they hit the OVERHEAD......."well, I need  it early to mail"......what? Why didn't they come in earlier then? If one needs a CUsTOM item, doesn't that indicated it will take man-hours?? That's just one of the attitudes he deals with.it's not pretty, I assure you!

This death, however, is absolutely the lowest of human denominators. can you imagine, opening your gifts, knowing someone died so YOU could get into a store a bit early?  " YEAH, I got it on sale, and someone died for it>....."not something I would want on my conscience!

Personally, I think stores should go back to a Mon-Sat schedule ALL YEAR.......and keep hours at the 9=9..or even less......we'll FIND a way to get in during store hours......and, let's not 'whip up" the consumers to the point where they have a compulsion to leave their Thnaksgiving table, in order to get in on Midnight madness!! .....it's a special day, even WITHOUT  the special gifts.....
Here in Oregon, the crowds were a LOT smaller than anticipated, retailers were a bit disappointed........is that the economy or people saying ENOUGH!!???

OH, and 1 more thing..........patience, everyone.......

I blame retail as well as the consumers.........

Cathi angry at humanity

My favorite is the one's who think it's OK to shop out of your cart when your not looking...

Add:

My wife asked the big no-no (why don’t you come shopping with me?).

I thought for a second and uttered “name one man you know that likes to shop”

Yea, I got the usual look….

We ahve had two Wal Mart Super Centers for many years.  To my knowledge, nothing like this has ever happened (it looks like that Wal Mart is a smaller one and pretty new).  In fact, the last *set to* that I can remember was in Toys R' Us, over a frickin' baby doll, no less.

Very, very sad    I went shopping once on Black Friday and I'll never go again.  People plowing into you, taking things out of your cart.  It's ridiculous.

Melissa wrote on Nov 29^th, 2008 at 1:13pm:


I've never ever seen you swear before Mel - and I agree 100%.

What a complete and utter waste of a life. What a tragedy, not just for this man and his fmaily but for all of us if this is how people behave.