My hopes that the Black Friday Walmart trampling case were untrue were dashed:
"Mulvey said yesterday that Damour's cause of death was "positional asphyxiation" consistent with having pressure applied to his chest.
"He was trampled to death," Mulvey said."
That's just frickin' terrible. Sigh.
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4 comments:
Jim: How does this relate to Surowiecki's "Wisdom of Crowds"? And what is your feeling about Walmart's responsibility in this act?
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I still haven't read it, but I think it's actually not relevant to his thesis. In this situation, I suggest that "the crowd" itself was a single organism (aka a mob), whereas Surowiecki's crowds are made up of millions of individuals making discreet choices. (according to the Wikipedia page, he address these sorts of situations where crowds do things 'wrong.')
Walmart managers clearly showed incorrect judgment. YouTube seems to show lots of different cases where there are these sorts of Black Friday stampedes. (Personally, I was unaware of the tendency of the crowd to come rushing in.) In addition, it was only a few years ago that a woman claimed to have been hurt in such a crush (she was later shown to be a serial victim at Walmart, apparently looking for quick settlements.) I'm surprised that there were not protocols put in place since that incident.
If you're looking for me to absolve Walmart of some responsibility, you're not going to find it. But if you're looking for me to absolve the crowd, well, no, that's not going to happen either. (And don't blame consumerism or George Bush for telling us to go shopping after 9/11 for Pete's sake.)
If I were the prosecutor in charge of this mess, I would take the first 300 people or so in line and charge them all with manslaughter. I wouldn't get any convictions, but I'd get settlements that would force acts of contrition for being part of the mob; memorial service attendance, an apology, etc.
I would also obviously be looking at some level of civil/criminal negligence on the part of Walmart management. It is clear, at least from my perspective, that Walmart failed to learn the lessons that many other stores have learned (Best Buy, for instance, has a single-file line and tickets.)
What do you think?
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I was somewhat joking about the wisdom of crowds but I had preconceived notions about your feelings for the company.
I think it is a tough case for me but the law is pretty clear. It is Walmarts property and they need to control it.
Was it the University of Wisconsin that had the crushing deaths when the crowd was pushing to get on the field?
Your preconceived notions of my opinions of Walmart (based on a conversation circa 2004-2005 or so) aren't so off the mark. I don't, in general, subscribe to most typical complaints about the store (e.g. union-busters, poor working conditions, mom-and-pop killers.)
I still think Walmart is an mostly admirable company that does a number of things (low prices, excellent logistics) very, very well. Perhaps it's very SWPL of me, but after a number of years of shopping in the Portage location at 11 pm, I don't really like WM very much, but I think it's a good thing that it exists.
My main complaint is the poor appearance of the stores -- things are always out of place or off kilter. Their margins don't allow for more staff to clean, which sets off a 'broken windows'-type situation where customers feel free to mess up an already messy store.
Because of this (my main complaint), I'm willing to shop elsewhere. Perhaps in this down economy, I'll change my tune.
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