How Walmart Could Have Avoided Friday's Tragedy - Simple Diagram

[DoctorMyEyes]

As I've said many times in the last two days I TOTALLY blame Walmart for that young man's death. As a Loss Prevention professional - this is why I feel that way:

Pressure builds up in a crowd, physical and emotional pressure. If you're hosting an event that's going to draw a large crowd it behooves you to exercise safe crowd control procedures. The very first thing that should have happened was to control access to the door. You can't have 2000 people pointed straight on at a damn door. You have to route the people through a series of pathways made with portable fencing or stanchions. See in the diagram that using this kind of system alleviates the pressure of people from behind shoving forward towards the door? The red arrows show the path in. The blue arrows show the path out. As soon as the swell of shoppers has passed you can remove these temporary barriers and everything goes back to normal. (The little black dots at the bottom of the rectangle represent the doorway and the black lines represent barriers) As you can see the barriers don't need to weave through the whole parking lot - just a few rows will stop unwanted forward momentum and the rest of the line can form more casually. And yes - I did say line. No more than two abreast, and in fact I usually say I want single file and then let people "get away" with two abreast.

The little green guys represent security - which can be any combination of store security staff, off duty police officers hired for the event, or store managers. They need to have walkie talkie communication and the outside security should be outside well before the doors open. At least an hour before, but best practice is as soon as the line starts to form.

The outside staff talks to the crowd and kinda "works the line" - making sure everyone is in a good mood, is calm, is feeling okay. You don't let people stand around getting nervous and fixated. You play nursemaid, comedian and friend as well as authority. You let people know that there's not going to be any line jumping. That anyone pushing or shoving ain't gonna make their purchase even if they're first to get to it. If you notice any loudmouths talking about how they're going to get their widget and perhaps making the other people in line feel apprehensive you squash that shit right away and remind everyone that they're going to be treated respectfully and we're going to get everyone in in a calm and orderly fashion.

Have you seen the Dog Whisperer? Calm submissive? That's how you want your crowd. You don't want them fixated. If someone is looking too tense you make some casual conversation - "where you from?", "what time did you get here?", "how was your holiday?"

I don't know who put up that "Blitz Line Starts Here" sign, but that was a BIG mistake. If properly trained security was outside that wouldn't have been there. If a store employee put that sign up he can probably kiss his ass goodbye.

Another thing I've seen in other Walmart videos is shoppers running through the doors with shopping carts. WTF!?!? NOBODY on line should have been permitted to have a cart upon entering. NOBODY! The carts should have been dispersed throughout the store so people could pick them up at different points without creating a situation at a central indoor cart corral.

I know this post is long, but I wanted to be clear in explaining what I know. In 20 years I've never been involved in an event that didn't go off as planned - and no one has ever been injured. Walmart however consistently and deliberately ignores proper crowd control procedures. Every Black Friday and every major game system release brings "rioting" at Walmart cause Walmart enjoys the free publicity and hype when it makes the news. They have operated for years with total disregard for their customers and their employees. I hope they pay for this one and pay dearly.

Also - to those that are blaming the shoppers - please don't. In my opinion, from what I've seen and read so far, the worst I can judge them for are being the kind of people who would stand in line all night to get into a Walmart. I don't believe anyone CHOSE their holiday purchase over someone elses life. Individually you probably wouldn't find a single soul in that crowd that would have knowingly or willingly participated in someones death. They were permitted to ferment into a competitive mob fixated on their goal. The people pushing from the back had no idea that they were pushing people onto someone who had been knocked down. The people being pushed over him had no power to stop the mob pushing them forward. And even the people who became fleetingly aware that someone was down probably didn't appreciate the seriousness of the situation or that they could have done anything to assist.