Obscanity: You'll know it when you see it

This story just makes me sick. A Wal-Mart employee was trampled to death as the store opened and the crowd literally broke down the stores surging into the store.

I heard about this while waiting in line at Kohl’s earlier today with a friend and some relatives. People were griping about the long wait, and talking about how crazy it was that the line was sooooo long. One lady mentioned something about a stampede at another store, and a bunch of other people chimed in, adding that an employee at that other store was killed and a pregnant lady was injured and might be having a miscarriage. (Thankfully the pregnant woman who was injured did not have a miscarriage; the news article says her baby will be fine). I remarked that that at the very least, hearing this story made waiting 1.5 hours in line to check out seem pretty darned nice.

When one guy mentioned that the store in question was Wal-Mart, I quietly muttered, “Well. That’s Wal-Mart.” One of my relatives overheard this and was like, “Oh, I know you don’t like Wal-Mart, but you can’t blame this on them too!!” I pointed out that it was their responsibility to manage crowds and hire extra security, because crowds certainly can’t manage themselves – and the people around us in line started chipping in about how dangerous Wal-Mart parking lots are, and how they don’t really invest in security anyway, and how they understaff their stores, and all the stuff that I am always wishing more people knew about. I was impressed.

Seriously, people – the story makes me sick. What really kills me is that when the store finally did something RIGHT by shutting down for the day, after the employee had been murdered by careless and selfish shoppers, this same crowd actually got angry at the store for closing. They were indignant, insisting that they deserved their discounts after waiting in line since 5AM.

These people KILLED a man, and simply did not seem to care.

Meanwhile, wouldn’t it have been worth a little extra money for Wal-Mart to fucking hire some crowd management staff, when they know damned well that they’re going to have a crowd like this? Rabid shoppers are not exactly a new phenomenon, especially on major “shopping holidays.” But God forbid a Wal-Mart should be adequately staffed… Oh no. Their feigning surprise at this incident is like John McCain going, “Good heavens! Who knew sub-prime lending would lead to economic collapse??? If only we had known, we could have prevented this crisis…”

Honestly. I wish they could be held accountable for what they did. The store, the crowd, the decision-makers. I wish every person whose foot touched this man, or who deliberately jostled somebody into somebody else into somebody else whose foot touched this man, could share a little bit in the punishment for his completely unnecessary death. I wish the store could be held accountable for failing to provide adequate crowd control mechanisms.

But of course, nobody will be held accountable. Oh, people will be criticized, but nobody will really be punished for this. Ah, America and its consumer-driven mob mentality.

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