What's Wrong with People? [UPDATED]
At 5 this morning I'd have rather been in India than waiting to get into a Wal-Mart. Unfortunately, some poor souls are required to be there: the employees.

A Wal-Mart employee in suburban New York died after being trampled by a crush of shoppers who tore down the front doors and thronged into the store early Friday morning, turning the annual rite of post-Thanksgiving bargain hunting into a frenzy.

The 34-year-old employee, who was not identified, was knocked down by a crowd that broke down the doors of the Wal-Mart at the Green Acres Mall in Valley Stream, N.Y., and surged into the store. He was pronounced dead at a nearby hospital at 6 a.m.

Though they will probably be spared by a claim of something like "shoppers' derangement syndrome", I wish people would go to jail for this. And Wal-Mart should have to pay their statewide profits for the whole insane day to this man's family.

[UPDATE: CYA underway:

Wal-Mart Stores Inc., based in Bentonville, Ark., called the incident a "tragic situation" and said the employee came from a temporary agency and was doing maintenance work at the store. It said it tried to prepare for the crowd by adding staffers and outside security workers, putting up barricades and consulting police.

"Despite all of our precautions, this unfortunate event occurred," senior Vice President Hank Mullany said in a statement. "Our thoughts and prayers go out to the families of those impacted."

Also, apparently, police are looking at video surveillance to try and identify shoppers. You can imagine how well that might go.]