[Corp. Watch] When corporations kill, the most they pay is blood money

[Corporation Watch]

Wal-Mart to Pay $2 Million After Employee's Death

(CNN, May 7) -- Wal-Mart has agreed to pay nearly $2 million and take  
extra safety precautions after a stampede killed a store employee in  
Long Island, New York, last year.

	The top prosecutor in Nassau County said she struck the deal rather  
than pursue criminal charges in the death of a 34-year-old man who was  
trampled to death as shoppers flooded into the store.

	It happened as the store opened on the day after Thanksgiving, which  
is traditionally among the busiest days of the year for retailers.

	Wal-Mart agreed to pay $1.5 million for community programs in Nassau  
County, and another $400,000 to compensate people who were injured in  
the incident and repay them for out-of-pocket expenditures, District  
Attorney Kathleen Rice said in a statement.

	Rice and Wal-Mart said they agreed on a crowd-management plan that  
the retailer will implement at each of its 92 stores in New York for  
after-Thanksgiving shopping.

	The plan was developed by experts who have worked on crowd management  
at Super Bowls and Olympic Games, said Hank Mullany, a senior vice  
president at the company.

	Wal-Mart "will consider how aspects of this plan could apply to  
stores outside of New York," Mullany said in a statement.

	"We have never had a tragedy like this in our stores, and we don't  
want it to happen again," his statement said. "We are committed to  
learning from it and making our stores even safer for our customers  
and our associates."

	The agreement between Nassau County and Wal-Mart "does not include an  
admission of guilt or wrongdoing by the corporation," the district  
attorney said.

	Discussions that yielded the agreement, which was announced  
Wednesday, started after a temporary Wal-Mart employee -- Jdimytai  
Damour of Jamaica -- was trampled to death at the Green Valley Wal- 
Mart in Long Island around 5 a.m. on November 28.

	At the time, Detective Lt. Michael Fleming of the Nassau County  
police described "utter chaos" when Wal-Mart workers tried to open the  
store doors that day.

	By 5 a.m. that Friday, when the doors were unlocked, there were about  
2,000 shoppers waiting to enter, and many "surged forward," breaking  
the doors, he said.

	Video showed as many as a dozen people knocked to the floor in the  
stampede of people trying to get into the Wal-Mart store, Fleming  
said. The employee was "stepped on by hundreds of people" as other  
workers attempted to fight their way through the crowd, Fleming said.

	"Several minutes" passed before others were able to clear space  
around the man and attempt to render aid. Police arrived, and "as they  
were giving first aid, those police officers were also jostled and  
pushed" by shoppers he said.

	"Shoppers ... were on a full-out run into the store," he said.