Walmart Silent After Police Say Trampling Victim Died of Asphyxiation

Among the questions Walmart declined to answer was what specific security and other procedures were in place to handle the crowd that day at the store and other locations, at least a few of which reportedly had incidents as well, albeit none fatal like the Valley Stream, N.Y., incident. Police placed at least some of the blame for the incident on Walmart, although a department spokesman said video surveillance from the Valley Stream store was being viewed to determine which shoppers stepped on Damour as they rushed into the store at about 5 a.m. Monday to scoop up doorbuster bargains.

Criminal charges are being considered, the police spokesman said. He declined to comment on whether the security that Walmart had in place Friday at the store was adequate. Published reports quoted Nassau County Police Commissioner Lawrence Mulvey as saying the preliminary investigation showed Walmart failed to provide adequate security outside the store. “In fact, security was inside the store and not outside organizing, arranging and planning for this anticipated opening,” Mulvey said. He also conceded that it could be difficult to bring criminal charges because it would be necessary to establish recklessness or an intent to harm on the part of the frantic shoppers.

The number of Walmart security personnel and other employees wasn’t adequate to accommodate the line of about 2,000 shoppers that had formed before the store’s opening, Anthony Repalone, detective sergeant in the Nassau County Police Department’s public information office, told Consumer Electronics Daily Friday. Customers in line “became impatient” and forced their way into the store before it opened, breaking the store’s electric glass door, he said. Damour “fell down or was pushed down” by people in the crowd, Repalone told us. Video surveillance cameras showed the crowd running into the store and they “stepped on or around” Damour and “continued shopping,” he said.

Police who arrived on the scene were pushed and shoved, he told us, and emergency workers were stepped on by shoppers when the emergency team arrived to perform CPR on Damour. About 20 police cars arrived on the scene and officers eventually emptied the store of all customers, Repalone said. Damour was taken to Franklin Hospital Medical Center where he was pronounced dead at about 6 a.m. Friday. Four other people had minor injuries and were treated and released, or refused medical aid, Repalone said. A woman who was eight months pregnant was treated at an area hospital, and she and the baby were fine, he said.

Police had been patrolling the area around the nearby Green Acres Mall overnight as usual in the early morning hours of Black Friday, Repalone said. He told us a small number of police officers were on the scene before the store opened and talked to the crowd at one point before 5 a.m. The shoppers were “complying at that time,” he said. However, two shoppers injured in the incident filed a notice of claim against Nassau County, reportedly claiming the police did nothing as the crowd became unruly. The Nassau County Police Department declined to comment on the notice of claim.

The only other statements that Walmart made about the incident came Friday from Hank Mullany, the retailer’s senior vice president and president for the Northeast Division of Walmart U.S. “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.” The company also “erected barricades,” but “despite all of our precautions, this unfortunate event occurred,” he said. It’s not clear whether the barricades were installed before or after the incident.

Other events were reported at a few of Walmart’s other stores that same day. Trude Flynn, a 44-year-old woman from Huntington, N.Y., said she was pushed to the ground and trampled on when customers rushed into the retailer’s Farmingdale, N.Y., store at about 5 a.m. Friday, a spokeswoman for the Suffolk County, N.Y., Police Department told us Tuesday. Flynn continued to shop and later filed a police report, the spokeswoman said, saying the victim had a cut on her leg, which was swollen. A similar incident was also reported at a Secaucus, N.J., Walmart store.

On Thanksgiving weekend 2005, a 13-year-old girl was also trampled by shoppers on Thanksgiving weekend 2005 at a Walmart store near Grand Rapids, Mich., and three women were trampled at a Walmart store over the Thanksgiving weekend 2002 at a Riverside, Calif., Walmart store, Newsday reported. Walmart declined to comment on the other incidents.

Walmart wouldn’t say whether it plans to review its procedures for future early morning openings on Black Friday and other days in light of the Valley Stream incident. Like Best Buy and many other retailers, Walmart store employees on such mornings typically hand out tickets to customers lined up for heavily in-demand items, especially those available in only limited supplies. But our own experiences at a Walmart store in East Meadow, N.Y., indicated that employees there didn’t start handing out tickets until minutes before the store opening and didn’t clearly communicate to customers how many of each item were available.

Determining which items will be most in demand is also an inexact science. At a pre-Black Friday early morning store opening in East Meadow last year, tickets were given out to buy one or two items including a cheap laptop -- but none were given out for a $100 Toshiba HD DVD player that many people on line were apparently looking to buy. There didn’t appear to be enough units of the HD DVD player to satisfy the demand and confusion reigned inside the store’s cramped electronics department. It seemed store employees didn’t clearly communicate where the HD DVD players could be found or whether there would be a line inside the store to get one. There were no incidents, however, possibly because it was ahead of Black Friday and there weren’t as many people as is typical the day after Thanksgiving.

The key to handling a crowd on Black Friday is communication, said Chris Levenburg, district manager for GameStop’s Western Long Island stores. “A couple of years ago,” GameStop stores started a greeter program inside its stores and appointed line managers to get a sense of what products customers are looking for and inform them whether there would be adequate supplies on that item, he said. Employees will go outside where a line has formed prior to the store opening to communicate information to the customers, he told us.

The staffers will also write down what customers want and have the items ready for them at the register by the time they get there to help speed the process, he said. There hasn’t been any incident in which consumers have been harmed at GameStop stores on Black Friday, he said. But he conceded that the lines at GameStop stores on Black Friday tend not to be as long as those at larger rivals such as Walmart and Best Buy, which sell a broader selection of products.

Best Buy makes shoppers line up in single file while waiting on line before doors open on Black Friday, a company spokeswoman said Tuesday. Store employees typically hand out tickets for each item expected to be popular about one hour before the store opens and sometimes try to lighten the mood by joking with customers on line, she said. Ahead of Black Friday, staffers practice procedures on how to handle situations on the busy shopping day, she also said.

Incidents tend to happen at Walmart stores more than its rivals because “nobody else has the same sort of deals that Walmart has” on Black Friday, Britt Beemer, chairman of America’s Research Group in Charleston, S.C., said Tuesday. Walmart was offering deals on TVs that “Best Buy used to have,” he said, noting that Walmart advertised 32-, 42- and 50-inch flat-panel TVs as part of “incredible early-bird specials.” Walmart had typically focused promotions on 42- inch models in the past, but “raised the stakes” this year by offering the other screen sizes as well, he said. On Black Friday, Walmart advertised its 50-inch Samsung plasma TV doorbuster at $798, an “unheard of” price, he said.