by Ana Richters
Photo by BohPhoto

Consumerism is an art in America; the fashion industry sells clothing for millions of dollars, pets have their own designer lines, and cars are bought for appearance sake.

Shoppers love to brag about the amazing discounts and sales for which they spent the whole day hunting. If they had to fend off other shoppers to score the item, all the better; it makes for an excellent adventure story to tell the grandkids!

While Black Friday may be a great chance to stock up on discounted merchandise, the hyped-up sales sometimes cause more harm than good.

Yes, everyone loves a sale, which is why Black Friday has become so popular with Americans.  Every year, on the Friday after Thanksgiving (you know, the day everyone sits down with their mother, father, grandparents, and their siblings to give thanks for being alive, and for all the things they have in life that can’t be bought), the stores announce their big discounts in preparation for the Christmas season.

Large chains, such as Wal-Mart, Best Buy, and several malls, expect crowds of up to several thousand desperate customers, vying for ideal positions in front of the store’s glass doors. Even though customer attendance was predicted to decrease due to recent economic cutbacks, Black Friday in 2008 still saw crowds of hundreds flocking to local retail chains.

“The lines are really ridiculous. People line up at 3, 4 AM! My brother Garrick was in line by 2 AM last year to score a plasma screen from Best Buy! I thought that was ridiculous,” said Patrice Bartges, a Knoxville, TN resident.

The most recent Black Friday fiasco occurred in Long Island, NY, where a a crowd of roughly 2,000 frantic shoppers literally trampled a 34-year-old Wal-Mart employee to death.  Jdimytai Damour and his fellow employees were taken by surprise when a hostile crowd swarmed through the doors of the Valley Stream Wal-Mart at 5 AM.

Joe Gould, Clare Trapasso, and Rich Schapiro, for Nydailynews.com, interviewed witnesses on the scene.  “They took the doors off the hinges. He was trampled and killed in front of me. They took me down, too…I didn’t know if I was going to live through it. I literally had to fight people off my back,” said a fellow employee.

“They pushed him down and walked all over him,” said Damour’s sister, Danielle. “How could these people do that? He was such a young man with a good heart, full of life. He didn’t deserve that.”

When the police arrived, the store was a raging mass of chaotic bodies, scrambling for discounted items, which included a $798 Samsung 50-inch Plasma HDTV, a Bissel Compact Upright Vacuum for $28, and Men’s Wrangler Tough Jeans for $8.  The police had to fight off the crowd to reach Damour, who had to be transported to Franklin Hospital.  Damour was not the only person harmed in the 2,000 person onslaught. Four other victims were hospitalized, including a pregnant woman, who supposedly went into early labor during the rush. Both mother and child survived the incident.

“I am truly disgusted that such vulgarity is even possible! I mean, it’s the Christmas season,” said Suzi Richters, after catching a news feed of the incident. “To land a bargain is one thing, but to take a human life? I can’t believe no one would stop and help that poor man up!”

The store, which closed briefly after the unfortunate incident, reopened its doors at 1 PM. Within minutes, it was once again bombarded by customers.

This is not the only Black Friday incident to make headlines. The Toys R Us in Palm Desert, CA, was the site of a shooting between two parties who pulled guns on each other in the crowded store.  According to eye witnesses, two women started screaming and attacking one another with fists and nails. The two men with the women pulled guns from their pockets and shot each other. Both men died from bullet wounds.

Toys R Us issued a statement claiming, “We are working closely with local law enforcement officials to determine the specific details of what occurred. Our understanding is that this act seems to have been the result of a personal dispute between the individuals involved. Therefore, it would be inaccurate to associate the events of today with Black Friday.”

The 2006 release of the PS3 created panic in shopping centers across the nation. Police in McLean, VA were forced to use pepper pellets to subdue a crowd of 200 outside of Circuit City. One Wisconsin man was shoved head-first into a pole, while shoppers around him pushed to get at the PS3s. In Sullivan, IN, a man who waited more than 36 hours outside for his PS3, was rushed by 2 bandits looking to get their hands on the machine. The man pulled a knife and stabbed one of the attackers almost to death to defend his merchandise.

In 2005, a limited number of HP Pavilion notebooks in a Nebraska Wal-Mart caused a violent battleground, as customers vied for the remaining products. Those who managed to get their hands on the prized items were viciously shoved to the ground by fellow shoppers, who then attempted to wrestle the notebooks from their fallen comrades.

Every year, stores set up barricades, hire local police, and try to limit those entering the stores in an attempt to calm the madness that accompanies Black Friday. Even with these precautions, the damage done by crowds seems uncontrollable.

“I think it is incumbent upon the commercial establishments to recognize that this has the potential to occur at any store. Today, it happened to be Wal-Mart. It could have been any other store where hundreds and hundreds of people gather,” said Nassau County police Detective Lt. Michael Fleming, in a statement to CNN.  “This crowd was out of control.”