Walmadness

A WalMart Sunset
Originally uploaded by ryanbooth

Worker dies at Long Island Wal-Mart after being trampled in Black Friday stampede [Daily News]

A worker died after being trampled and a woman miscarried when hundreds of shoppers smashed through the doors of a Long Island Wal-Mart Friday morning, witnesses said.

The unidentified worker, employed as an overnight stock clerk, tried to hold back the unruly crowds just after the Valley Stream store opened at 5 a.m.

Witnesses said the surging throngs of shoppers knocked the man down. He fell and was stepped on. As he gasped for air, shoppers ran over and around him.

I'm speechless.

And if you want to be really horrified, check the readers' comments on the original story.

UPDATE:

2 killed inside Toys R Us in Palm Desert [KABC 7]

Two people were shot to death in a crowded toy store Friday in a confrontation apparently involving rival groups, city officials said.

The violence erupted on Black Friday, the traditional post-Thanksgiving start of the holiday shopping surge, but accounts of what occurred inside the store were fragmentary or second hand and it was not clear whether it involved any shopping frenzy.

Palm Desert Councilman Jim Ferguson said police told him two men with handguns shot and killed each other and that there were 25 witnesses. Ferguson said he asked police whether the incident was a dispute over a toy or whether it was gang-related. He said police told him they were not going to release further details until the next of kin were contacted.

"I think the obvious question everyone has is who takes loaded weapons into a Toys 'R' Us?" he said. "I doubt it was the casual holiday shopper."

Maybe that isn't such a bad idea.