Wal-Mart Worker killed by throng.

[Stormbringer]

While you make an excellent point, don't forget that the mob killed the guy. A lack of security should not excuse murder any more than lacking a concealed firearm (for example) should.

1) There's no way you could charge this as murder with out a very clear intent on the part of the members of the crowd. The charge would be manslaughter, with involuntary manslaughter being a strong possibility, since there was clearly no intent to kill. This was an act of indifference and irresponsible conduct, not murder.

2) As Edi pointed out, in the case of a surging crowd like this there is the practical, if not moral, considerations which makes it hard to sustain the charges. The people around this unfortunate employee may well have been pushed forward by the crowd and been forced over this person. It's going to be extremely difficult to punish anyone specifically because of that diffuse responsibility.

No one is arguing that they're blameless but the diffusion of responsibility is pretty signficant and that makes rounding them up little more than a fantasy. There's a lot of practical hurdles and acknowledging that doesn't make it any more acceptable for this to happen.

I wonder how much it would cost to deploy a couple guys in riot gear to some of these places. Not as a means to neutralize the crowd--that would be far too expensive and pointless--just one or two guys. Seeing them might be enough to get the point across; Keep your fucking cool, and wait in line.

Why the fuck would you need to go that far? One of those little belted queue lines that most stores have and some store security would do the job as well as going all martial law on them. Others do that now in advance of Christmas sales or to manage it when a hot product comes out. It's far more effective since it'll kill the crowd surge which turned these shoppers into a mob.

[Colonel Olrik]

I reiterate what Nitram has said in that you can't control your actions in a crowd exerting a pressure like this and the most you can do is minimize the danger for yourself, not always with success. I'm stronger and taller than 80% of the population and in last Oktoberfest, when a similar scene happened (a friend came from London and we decided taking him to the most popular tent, figuring that being at the doors at 6 a.m would be OK - big mistake) I saw people thrown against glass walls covered with blood before we slowly managed to get the fuck out of there. Our little group of three strong guys couldn't do anything except stay together and protect ourselves as best as possible.

The responsibility lies with the morons in charge of the organization, and the morons who couldn't be rational enough to go away instead of joining or staying in the crowd, thus adding to the pressure. The second are legally safe, and the first should be made to make sure to implement technological innovations like "queuing" and to pay a hefty compensation to the victim's family.

[Broomstick]

I don't normally "me too" anything, but I think here it needs to be said again because it just isn't sinking in with some of you. If you are in a mob stampede such as described there is nothing you can do for someone who falls down. You may well be forced to step on such a person in order to save your own life. If you fall down you might very well die. Or - and this has happened - you may not fall but the press of the crowd may lift you off your feet, leaving you entirely helpless, unable to move, and swept along with the crowd. I don't care how big you are, how tough you are, whatever - this is not a situation where you can do a damn thing other than try to survive.

Crowd stampedes have occured at stores, yes, but also at sports events, rock concerts, night clubs, large outdoor public events, natural disasters... too many people moving in one direction, or through a bottleneck, and this shit happens. A few years ago in Chicago at the E2 nightclub not only did a crowd get wedged into a stairwell, trampling people, but some were also crushed to death against the walls of the stairwell. In other words, you don't even have to fall down to die.

For this reason, there really is no purpose to bringing charges to the individuals in the crowd because under the law you can not be forced to give up your life for someone else's, and attempting to stop in such a crowd can be lethal. You will simply be mowed over.

Historically, it's the owners/operators of the venues in which such disasters take place who are held responsible as there are simple and relatively inexpensive ways to discourage such herdlike stampedes of human beings. If you get that big a crowd outside your store it is YOU who are responsible for crowd control.

[JCady]

The appropriate charges to be filed against the crowd -- every single person who was there in that mob -- are involuntary manslaughter and vandalism, and I would push very hard for the maximum penalty of ten years for anyone who does not plead guilty. These people deserve, and need, to have a permanent criminal record for what they did.

[Edi]

The appropriate charges to be filed against the crowd -- every single person who was there in that mob -- are involuntary manslaughter and vandalism, and I would push very hard for the maximum penalty of ten years.

Have you fucking read anything said in this thread? After the posts from me, Olrik and Broomstick, it should be clear that this is nothing but first order stupidity.

[Colonel Olrik]

The appropriate charges to be filed against the crowd -- every single person who was there in that mob -- are involuntary manslaughter and vandalism, and I would push very hard for the maximum penalty of ten years.

Oh great, if you state it in a one line paragraph it must be so.

[JCady]

The appropriate charges to be filed against the crowd -- every single person who was there in that mob -- are involuntary manslaughter and vandalism, and I would push very hard for the maximum penalty of ten years.

Have you fucking read anything said in this thread? After the posts from me, Olrik and Broomstick, it should be clear that this is nothing but first order stupidity.

I have read your "diffusion of responsibility" defense, and I think it's morally bankrupt to let the crowd get away with what they WILLINGLY did on the basis of a legal technicality. The lack of intent and circumstances justify reducing the charges to involuntary manslaughter, but certainly do not exonerate ANYONE.

[JCady]

The appropriate charges to be filed against the crowd -- every single person who was there in that mob -- are involuntary manslaughter and vandalism, and I would push very hard for the maximum penalty of ten years.

Oh great, if you state it in a one line paragraph it must be so.

If it makes you feel better, feel free to add "In my opinion," to the beginning of that. I thought that should be fairly obvious given that I'm not a lawyer.

[Colonel Olrik]

The appropriate charges to be filed against the crowd -- every single person who was there in that mob -- are involuntary manslaughter and vandalism, and I would push very hard for the maximum penalty of ten years.

Have you fucking read anything said in this thread? After the posts from me, Olrik and Broomstick, it should be clear that this is nothing but first order stupidity.

I have read your "diffusion of responsibility" defense, and I think it's morally bankrupt to let the crowd get away with what they WILLINGLY did on the basis of a legal technicality. The lack of intent and circumstances justify reducing the charges to involuntary manslaughter, but certainly do not exonerate ANYONE.

It's not a technicality. This is how a stampede works: the people from behind cannot see what's in front, they just for some reason (wolves, terrorist attack, etc) want to go forward. The people in front can see what it's going to happen to them, but they have no choice but to go forward as the pressure is irresistible. It does not matter if it's a fallen person or a crater in the ground, your direction and speed are almost beyond your control. Being tall and strong will help you stay afoot by fighting off the competitors for your space, but not more.

[Broomstick]

The appropriate charges to be filed against the crowd -- every single person who was there in that mob -- are involuntary manslaughter and vandalism, and I would push very hard for the maximum penalty of ten years.

Have you fucking read anything said in this thread? After the posts from me, Olrik and Broomstick, it should be clear that this is nothing but first order stupidity.

I have read your "diffusion of responsibility" defense, and I think it's morally bankrupt to let the crowd get away with what they WILLINGLY did on the basis of a legal technicality. The lack of intent and circumstances justify reducing the charges to involuntary manslaughter, but certainly do not exonerate ANYONE.

Yes, the circumstances DO exonerate.

The choices are:

1) Move forward

- or -

2) be trampled and injured/killed yourself

Unless you are willing to state that you would rather die than step on another human being you're being willfully obtuse. In a crowd stampede you do not have a choice. You either move forward or the crowd moves over you. It's not technicality, it's physics - one person does not have the power to stop a crowd moving in that manner. You might as well argue with an avalanche. The pressure exerted on you to move forward is measured in hundreds of kilograms, no human being has the strength the push back against that.

Seriously - this shit has happened many times, a lot of these incidents have been well documented since the 20th Century. The pressure from such crowds can bend steel and bring down cement block walls - and the unfortunates up against the wall or the fence or whatever do not survive. Stampedes not only crush they can dismember just from sheer number of feet traveling over joints. As it is, this was NOT a worse case scenario by any means, tragic though it is.

If the choice is truly between your life and someone else's our legal system allows you to choose yourself without being a criminal. Yes, it sucks to be the person underfoot in such a circumstance, but what you're asking people to do is throw themselves under the bus. Ain't gonna happen. Unless it can be proved someone(s) in the crowd provoked this then the crowd is not legally liable and it's not a technicality. The responsible parties are those who offered the "attractive nuisance" (in this case a sale) without proper safeguards or response to a large crowd.

In the Accra disaster in 2001 it was not the crowd but the police who were supposed to be controlling the crowd who were charged with manslaughter.

On May 29, 1985 Heysel Stadium in Belgium, 39 dead

This is a picture from that disaster


Look past the injured man to the cinderblocks and metal grating - THAT was pushed down by a surging crowd. Can you seriously tell me that YOU would be capable of resisting a force capable of breaking down a wall of cinderblock and steel?

Here is another view of the debris field. Again, tell me that you could, really, honestly, hold back the force that fractured a wall in the manner seen:



From here (emphasis added):

"Crowd forces can reach levels that almost impossible to resist or control. Virtually all crowd deaths are due to compressive asphyxia and not the "trampling" reported by the news media. Evidence of bent steel railings after several fatal crowd incidents show that forces of more than 4500 N (1,000 lbs.) occurred. Forces are due to pushing, and the domino effect of people leaning against each other.

"Compressive asphyxia has occurred from people being stacked up vertically, one on top of the other, or horizontal pushing and leaning forces. In the Ibrox Park soccer stadium incident, police reported that the pile of bodies was 3 m (10 feet) high. At this height, people on the bottom would experience chest pressures of 3600-4000 N (800-900 lbs.), assuming half the weight of those above was concentrated in the upper body area.

"Horizontal forces sufficient to cause compressive asphyxia would be more dynamic as people push off against each other to obtain breathing space. In the Cincinnati rock concert incident, a line of bodies was found approximately 9 m (30 ft) from a wall near the entrance. This indicates that crowd pressures probably came from both directions as rear ranks pressed forward and front ranks pushed off the wall.

"Experiments to determine concentrated forces on guardrails due to leaning and pushing have shown that force of 30% to 75% of participant weight can occur. In a US National Bureau of Standards study of guardrails, three persons exerted a leaning force of 792 N (178 lbs.) and 609 N (137 lbs.) pushing. [9] In a similar Australian Building Technology Centre study, three persons in a combined leaning an pushing posture developed a force of 1370 N (306 lbs.). [10] This study showed that under a simulated "panic", 5 persons were capable of developing a force of 3430 N (766 lbs.)." From Fruin "Causes and Prevention of Disasters"

Google pulled up over seven million hits on "crowd disasters", a half million if you throw "physics" into the search. Please do educate yourself. This is not idle speculation, this is a serious slice of science and the consensus is that no human being can resist the flow of a crowd disaster once it starts. You don't even have to be trampled, in fact, compressive asphyxia is the most common form of death. Your ribcage is compressed and you are unable to inhale - at which point you are quite likely to stumble and fall. You may not even be aware you are walking on another human being as you struggle to breathe and push free of the vice.

[Edi]

The appropriate charges to be filed against the crowd -- every single person who was there in that mob -- are involuntary manslaughter and vandalism, and I would push very hard for the maximum penalty of ten years.

Have you fucking read anything said in this thread? After the posts from me, Olrik and Broomstick, it should be clear that this is nothing but first order stupidity.

I have read your "diffusion of responsibility" defense, and I think it's morally bankrupt to let the crowd get away with what they WILLINGLY did on the basis of a legal technicality. The lack of intent and circumstances justify reducing the charges to involuntary manslaughter, but certainly do not exonerate ANYONE.

As Olrik and Broomstick explained in detail above, you cannot argue with the laws of physics. They just don't care. I don't give a damn about what you exonerate or don't, since your whole argument is based on an utter and total ignorance of the issue. I've experienced crowd pressure, though only a few dozen people who were not even pushing forward very much and that was unpleasant enough. Olrik also detailed his experiences with a far larger crowd and he's nearly a head taller than I am, twice or three times as strong and fit as I am and he had difficulty just moving anywhere with a group of friends of similar size and build working together.

I suppose next you're going to be educating Knife, Coyote, Ender and the other Mess members on how the military works?

[The Duchess of Zeon]

The really awesome thing about details like that is that it explains precisely how densely packed Greek formations were able to defeat less concentrated armies--the force of the charge was literally enough to crush people to death, to easily ram spears that concentrated that force through enemy individuals on the other side of the engagement. And why it was so brutal when two similar such armies were fighting; literally thousands of newtons were being pushed by the great mass of the men in the rear ranks (which were sometimes up to 56-men deep) against those in the front and thus into the enemy.

Really, a crowd is an awesome thing in the sense of being awe inspiring and terrible, and it possesses real physical force in what it does. That can and sould never be disrupted.

[Big Phil]

Back in 2000 I attended Easter Mass at Notre Dame cathedral in Paris. I was astonished at how much crowd pressure there was to get through these three tiny gates (maybe 10-15 feet wide total). If anyone had fallen, they'd have been trampled, there was just nothing that could have been done about it - there was no stopping, as there were several thousand people behind me pushing.

[JCady]

My assignment of guilt is based primarily on the fact that people continued to push into the store after the initial rush, actively interfered with EMS efforts, and violently resisted management efforts to close the store in order to give EMS room to work. You can say that people "couldn't stop" the mob push, but they sure as hell could leave the store when told to as opposed to screaming and cursing that they had a "right" to shop because they'd been waiting all morning.

In my opinion, they assume guilt for the manslaughter by their actions after it, just as killing someone in a hit-and-run-accident is considered manslaughter even if the original collision was purely accidental and would have resulted in no charges had the person stopped.

[Stormbringer]

My assignment of guilt is based primarily on the fact that people continued to push into the store after the initial rush, actively interfered with EMS efforts, and

No where in the articles posted does it say that they interfered with EMS personel, lot alone intentionally. The crowd, which was some 2,000 people mind you, did keep moving and prevent employees from responding immediately but that's to be expected because of the size. If you've got documentary evidence for your claims, by all means post it.

violently resisted management efforts to close the store in order to give EMS room to work.

Again, no where in the articles posted do they say that they reacted violently or that the order to clear out shoppers actually interfered with treatment. They were disgruntled and dickish at the store being shut down because of the death, not for EMS to work. It's dickish but hardly criminal.

In my opinion, they assume guilt for the manslaughter by their actions after it, just as killing someone in a hit-and-run-accident is considered manslaughter even if the original collision was purely accidental and would have resulted in no charges had the person stopped.

Opinions are like assholes, everyone's got one. If you want anyone to take it seriously, it's up to you to justify your position. And so far you seem to be envisioning a scenario which the articles do not support having happened in order to justify your opinion.

[Beowulf]

The fault is not in members of the mob. The fault is in the people who allowed the mob to form.

[Ryan Thunder]

The fault is not in members of the mob. The fault is in the people who allowed the mob to form.

The people who formed the mob in the first place, rather, by not standing in ordered line-ups like civilized people.

[Beowulf]

The fault is not in members of the mob. The fault is in the people who allowed the mob to form.

The people who formed the mob in the first place, rather, by not standing in ordered line-ups like civilized people.

Lines don't form unless someone organizes them. And unless that someone has some semblance of authority (such as working for the event being held), that person will not be obeyed. Were you dropped on your head too many times as a kid, hatfucker?

[Broomstick]

This is a picture of the entrance of the Wal-Mart in question:



Observe the damage. Remember, it was not just that one man was killed, other people were injured. SOMEONE was forced into that doorframe with enough force to bend it out of shape. Again, who could resist that level of force?

The police are reviewing security tapes of the event. IF someone is found to have committed an act that is criminal charges will be brought. I don't expect them to find someone in the crowd culpable for the man's death.

[Adrian Laguna]

The really awesome thing about details like that is that it explains precisely how densely packed Greek formations were able to defeat less concentrated armies--the force of the charge was literally enough to crush people to death, to easily ram spears that concentrated that force through enemy individuals on the other side of the engagement. And why it was so brutal when two similar such armies were fighting; literally thousands of newtons were being pushed by the great mass of the men in the rear ranks (which were sometimes up to 56-men deep) against those in the front and thus into the enemy.

There are accounts from the time detailing how phalanx formations would churn even the toughest soil and carve furrows deeper than any plow. It would be easy to think them hyperbole, but when one considers the forces involved, it is clear that they are being quite literal.

This also explains the famed lethality and effectiveness of pike formations in Renaissance and Early Modern Europe. Same concept, longer spears.

[Covenant]

As stated, if there's any blame it has to be with store management. I've worked security before in those times when art isn't paying the bills, and I've managed crowds at concerts and other things, like Black Friday openings. It is not hard to have an orderly experience if you can stop the crowd surge before it gets moving, and up until the moment the crowd starts to go through those doors you have an opportunity to get a megaphone and ask everyone to wait and you'll let them in 20 people at a time. If the Walmart staff really had NO security, not even their own standard store staff, the manager still could have done that bit themselves. This doesn't mean they're responsible for the death directly, but this was very irresponsible behavior on the part of the store owners. Everyone knows that you have the capacity for mob actions on Black Friday, not just trampling but also theiving of product, destruction of property from over-capacity shopping, scuffles over "first 50 customer" deals, and so forth. It was their choice to participate in the day's crazy shopping spree and to let a mob form, they do have a responsibility to providing a safe environment. So really, I'm seeing negligence on the part of the store owners, maybe if someone hassled an EMT while trying to get in they can get slapped with something, but once the surge starts it's really nobody's fault. Just should have never started.

[Starglider]

Lines don't form unless someone organizes them.

This is heavily culturally dependent. In the UK, people naturally queue all the time without any organisation, even for things in high demand. My limited travels in the US do support the stereotype that Americans don't tend to queue unless they have to.

[The Romulan Republic]

Don't know if this has been mentioned yet, but according to CNN some of the people continued to shop and jostled the police or paramedics or whoever it was who was on the scene. I'll try to find a source for this, but if true its pretty fucking disgusting.

[Broomstick]

The UK has had crowd disasters despite their willingness to queue. It's always a possibility when a crowd forms.

And it's true - Americans don't usually spontaneously form lines. Even so, this sort of thing is an anomaly (thank goodness). For example, on 9/11 tens of thousands of people were fleeing a double building collapse yet there were no reports of this sort of death-by-crowd. These things don't always happen even when conditions pose a risk.

[Coyote]

It wouldn't surprise me if the Wal-Mart management encouraged the initial hysterical rush to try to whip up a "shopping frenzy" mentality that would get people to buying as much stuff as possible. The economy being what it is, even a lot of major chains really need a decent holiday shopping season to get through the year.

I'm sure they never would have whooped up a "frenzy" attitude if they'd known what would happen; it'd be my guess that they didn't think through the dangers and were just hoping to have a lot of excited, eager, happy shoppers.