Black Friday's first victim: Jdimytai Damour
The 2011 Honda Civic of Black Friday's latest victim: Patrick Henry Boyd.
Some have asked, "Why is there a concentration of attention on 'bad news' on this blog?".
Fair enough.
The simple answer is that social science on the twilight language is done more easily through tracking violent events in the media, as those are noted more routinely.
In The Copycat Effect: How The Media and Popular Culture Trigger The Mayhem in Tomorrow's Headlines (NY: Simon and Schuster, 2004), I document how this attitude is dealt to us as "death sells."
While it would be wonderful to track daily events and changes in terms of positive behaviors, that is rather difficult. The copycat effect, for example, is working all the time, whether in milder forms such as people copying "fads" like hula hoops, buying the same color of cars or shooting victims in schools.
The media gets more involved with acts of violence, because, if it bleeds, it leads is a truth of modern news.
So, here we are, the day after Thanksgiving 2013, in the USA. It is Black Friday, which is named for businesses going into the "black" (turning a profit) in revenue. The death is rising, and even the English are following the history of "worst clashes."
In reality, in recent years, it has become capitalism's version of "Devil's Night," chiefly associated with the serious vandalism and arson seen in Detroit, Michigan from the 1970s to the 1990s. Violence has been frequent news byproduct of reports on Black Fridays, since 2006, and the media appears to be enjoying detailing every fight, shooting, or near riots on Black Fridays.
Black Friday 2008 seemed especially dangerous. A New York Wal-Mart employee Jdimytai Damour died after 2000 bargain hunters broke down the doors to the store, pushing him to the ground. The 34-year-old male employee was pronounced dead an hour after shoppers breached the doors to the shopping center at 77 Green Acres Road, Valley Stream, Long Island. On the same day, two people were fatally shot during an altercation at a Toys "R" Us, Desert Crossing Shopping Center at 72314 Highway 111, in Palm Desert, California.
This year, here's the rundown, thus far, as noted by the Black Friday Death Count:
2013 Teen returning home from Black Friday shopping fell asleep at wheel, killed in wreck
The wreck happened at 7:24 a.m. on South Point Road near Tucker Road, in front of Jim's Grocery. The driver, 19-year-old Patrick Henry Boyd, of 6915 Treebark Lane, Clover, South Carolina, died in the wreck. Boyd's 2011 Honda Accord struck a sign at 1901 South Point Road.
2013 Man Stabbed During Black Friday Event at Carlsbad Mall
A man was hospitalized after being stabbed, just after 12:30 a.m., police received a report of a stabbing at the Westfield Plaza Camino Real mall located at 2525 El Camino Real. An 18-year-old man, who they identified as Javier Covarrubias, stabbed the man in the stomach, and then fled the scene on foot with another suspect towards the Movie Max Theater at the mall. He was arrested; the other man vanished.
Click the links, below, for more details on each incident:
2013 Newport, Arkansas Walmart employee injured during Black Friday sales
2013 NBPD confirm woman trampled at Wal-Mart
2013 Scenes of chaos during chain store's Black Friday sales in Ireland
2013 Several injured in Black Friday-related shooting outside Kohl's in Illinois
2013 Black Friday: Virginia Man Stabbed In Walmart Parking Lot Over Space
2013 Rialto Walmart brawl sends one police officer to hospital
2013 Shopper carrying TV home from Target shot in Las Vegas
More collections of Black Friday's Dark News (2013 edition) can be found here, here, and here. Heck, you can just follow it on the Drudge Report too, for the next few hours.
(H/T to Enki & JWC.)
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