On the final weekend shopping day before the holidays, the group Workplace Profit is holding a vigil and rally in front of the Valley Stream Wal-Mart where employee Jdimytai Damour was trampled to death on Black Friday. The vigil is being held at noon at the mall entrance at Sunrise Highway and Green Acres Road. The immigration activist group is pushing companies to have better training that what they see as the inadequate preparation given to Damour, who was not trained in either security or crowd control. Wal-Mart had no comment on the event since there is an investigation underway and there a lawsuit has been filed against the retail giant.
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A lawyer representing two victims injured in the Black Friday Wal-Mart stampede that left an employee dead has called for control of the investigation be moved to the state attorney general's office. Attorney Bruce Baron sent a letter to Attorney General Andrew Cuomo saying that there is a conflict of interest in the Nassau police department investigating the incident since there is also a civil suit against the county for negligence in dealing with the trampling. Nassau police will continue on the case while Cuomo's office reviews the letter. Lieutenant Kevin Smith told Newsday, "We clearly believe we're a professional police department and we're investigating a matter of criminality here."
Nassau County police offered more insights on what caused a restless Black Friday crowd of shoppers to trample Wal-Mart worker Jdimyati Damour to death. Newsday had an explanation from Nassau Police Lt. Kevin Smith: Apparently people waiting and standing outside the store came into conflict with people waiting in their cars who wanted to cut the line once the store opened, "A whole lot of people started getting out of their cars and made a beeline for that door... It's definitely a contributing factor - the mentality of 'They're not going to cut in front of me.'" As for the lawsuit that Damour's family filed against the store, Wal-Mart said, "We consider Mr. Damour"--he was a holiday hire-- "part of the Wal-Mart family, and are saddened by his death. We have been in communication with members of his family to do what we can to help them through this difficult time. Our associates know that when incidents like this occur, we take care of our own."
The family of Jdimytai Damour, the Wal-mart worker killed in the Black Friday stampede, has filed a wrongful-death lawsuit against the retailer. Damour, a temporary employee hired at the Valley Stream store for the holidays, was trampled to death by shoppers who had been waiting for hours for Wal-Mart to open its doors at 5 a.m. Newsday reports that the lawsuit faults the store for not providing enough security and says Wal-Mart "engaged in specific marketing and advertising techniques to specifically attract a large crowd and create an environment of frenzy and mayhem and was otherwise careless, reckless and negligent." (You can see one Wal-Mart Black Friday ad here.) Other parties named in the suit are the realty company that manages the property and the security firm for the store; Damour's family "also filed notice saying it plans to sue Nassau County and the Nassau County Police Department."
Yesterday, the Wal-Mart in Valley Stream was open for business, a day after a worker was trampled to death by shoppers eagerly waiting for the big Black Friday sale. Newsday reports, "But for the spiderweb crack on the glass front door and the car tires rolling over fallen police crime scene tape as drivers searched for parking spots, there was little outward sign of the early-morning chaos" seen on Friday.



