"Criminal charges were possible, but identifying individual shoppers in Friday's video may prove difficult, said Detective Lt. Michael Fleming, a Nassau County police spokesman."

Why is it so darned difficult? Put them on TV, run them, let the public see them. See if someone comes forward. Check the credit slip names of the first five hundred purchases and get pictures of the people who signed the slips. If they tried that hard to get in they didn't leave empty handed! Pull them in for questioning if they will not talk outside. Ask if anyone was with them. See who lawyers-up. This is a homicide investigation, not the theft of a pack of gum. As an aside I consider that wrong but I wouldn't be as aggressive on looking for the perp. This wasn't a crowd that trampled the guy, this was three to five people who knocked him down and went over him. Others probably stepped on him but once the frenzy was there they were being pushed by the crowd. Look at the other workers in the store that were hurt trying to rescue him. Look at the ire when the store was closed. I never go to this kind of thing because I have said for 40 years they are dangerous. Mobs kill!

"Other workers were trampled as they tried to rescue the man, and customers stepped over him and became irate when officials said the store was closing because of the death, police and witnesses said."

But as reprehensible as this is, the police are not without blame. Why do I say that? Look at the statement of the spokesperson.

"This crowd was out of control," Fleming said. He described the scene as "utter chaos," and said the store didn't have enough security.

Really? The store needed more security? This was not a shoplifting or someone getting hostile. This was a mob. Should the store prepare for a homicidal mob? What security would have stopped them? Billy clubs? Mace? Guns? Should store security be armed? If there had been ten armed police there (and there probably should have been with that large of a gathering) could they have prevented this? Were there calls earlier to police, before the store opened? How long after the call did the first officer get on the scene? Was it treated as a priority or was it set to age to see if it would go away? And finally, why hasn't a reporter asked these questions and reported the answers.

I have a scanner and in York City I hear at times the police dispatcher tell an officer this has been aged twenty minutes! The officer is to go and see if the problem has resolved. They are holding a ticket for twenty minutes to see if the problem will go away! Why?

Did someone call before the store opened and complain that the mob was getting unruly and the police took the wait and see attitude? I don't need to know this answer but the people of Nassau County should. I am asking the questions for them. The media should be doing a time line on this, when did each event happen? Why the media? Because they are to be the watchdogs and they are the only ones with the ability to get the information. The police will lawyer-up with their union representatives if it even looks like citizens want to check and make it difficult. The police officials will circle the wagons to defend against attack. All of them will point fingers at Walmart who if you are really honest probably has done nothing significant wrong or left undone anything they could have done. I worked the polls on election day. I saw what I would call a hostile mob at one time during that day. I was concerned. One trigger and it could have easily gotten nasty.

My guess on this is the man who was killed committed one error. He didn't get out of the mob's way in time. That mob was just as dangerous as a herd of stampeding cattle and with about the same mental level. He may have dropped a key or a pen and bent to pick it up. He may have seen something on the floor that could haven been a hazard and bent to pick it up to protect others. We may never know but he paid for that with his life. If you want to see the violence with which this mob was being driven, note that they bent the door frames.

I would love to have the police dispatcher radio tape for two hours before and two hours after the event. I would like to go through and log the calls, to, from, time, content. I would like to know. Why? Because this could happen other places! My thought on any event like this is to learn from it. If we do and learn to prevent or make it less likely to recur and Jdimytai Damour may not have totally died in vain. If we bring to justice the ones who cared so little for their fellow man that a cheap DVD was worth more than his life, maybe Jdimytai Damour will not have totally died in vain. If we make people, the police, whomever more responsive, maybe Jdimytai Damour will not have totally died in vain.

Jdimytai Damour should have lived to see his children grow up, and see his grandchildren and their children. Jdimytai Damour will not because of greed and lack of caring about each other. I apologize to the family of Jdimytai Damour for using his name repeatedly but I want someone to see it enough that it burns in their mind. I want Jdimytai Damour to be more than a nameless, faceless person in a poorly written story in AP. I want people to remember Jdimytai Damour as a fellow human being that got trampled by people in a hurry.

***UPDATE 11/30/2008***

A quote from a union leader appeared in another story. "New York's largest grocery workers union on Friday urged federal, state and local authorities to investigate what it called 'Wal-Mart's failure to provide a safe workplace.'"

He continues his meaningless and uninformed tirade. "'This incident was avoidable,' said Bruce Both, president of United Food and Commercial Workers Union Local 1500. 'Where were the safety barriers? Where was security? ... This is not just tragic; it rises to a level of blatant irresponsibility by Wal-Mart.'"

I agree with Bruce Both that this should be investigated but Both's comments and thrust fly in the face of getting to the truth, learning how to prevent a repeat and in compassion to the family. Let's face it. Both and his union have not been able to unionize Walmart. He and his union don't get to line their pockets with the union dues from those wages. Let me assure you, that is big buicks, usually about two hours a month of pay from each worker. Union leaders decry management living off the backs of the workers but let's face it, they do too. He makes no indication he had first hand information or even second hand information about the situation. He asks where the barriers were, the security. Justice would have been better served by him just keeping his mouth shut. But he isn't interested in justice, he is interested in JUST US, the union. I believe his members should realize that if something is good for one local and not for the union the local will be sacrificed down to the last job. I know that first hand. The article continued.

"Wal-Mart said it had added additional internal security, third party security, more store associates and had worked closely with local police.

'We also erected barricades. Despite all of our precautions, this unfortunate event occurred,' Hank Mullany, a Wal-Mart senior vice president, said in a statement.'

The Walmart manager was there. He helped with the preparations. Nobody who was there is questioning his statement. I would tend to believe it more than Both's who wasn't there and has as big an ase to grind as anyone from Walmart. In addition, Both can be irresponsible and go to excess with no possible repercussions. It helps his stature. The Walmart manager does not have that luxxury. If he overstates now it will most likely come back to haunt him.

Did Walmart not do enough? I don't know. I will bet Hank Mullany is asking himself that question now and a year from now will still be doing it. I pray for him. Hank has the distinction now of having something in common with a battlefield commander who looses a man. No matter who or what is blamed he will probably always question, did I miss something.

The police have a job of not only gathering the normal every day-to-day pieces of information regarding communities---but also gathering the necessary information to protect America.

Another issue in protecting America in should be considered is the media's role in messing up any protection America has to defend herself. The media needs to work with the police and not against the police by any means. This entire philosophy regarding joining hands with the police---as people of the press needs to happen---so the police can do their best in protecting America---in the struggles of fighting terrorists.

Police have already re-conceptualized their roles in society and are working hard already in the roles they had before. Police work even harder now and should be further compensated for all their hard work they perform to protect society from the enemy---terrorism.

The above is a headline of a story by Ed White, Associated Press Writer Dated Oct 14, 7:34 PM ET. When I read the headline I made mentally made some assumptions.

First, female police officers were forced to take leave by the City when pregnant.

Second, the City created and enforced these rules.

As usual the ACLU has gotten involved and for once I pretty much agree with the thrust of their suit but not the target of it.

The city of Detroit has it's problems, it has made lots of mistakes but let's be sure the city government is at fault before we damn them to hell and send out the ACLU to make their lives more difficult, a statement that seems to describe the job description of an ACLU lawyer.

Once upon a time in the City of Detroit pregnant officers were kept on duty and placed on jobs they could do as long as their doctor indicated the limited duty was safe for them. Generally these duties were clerical in nature.

Then along came another group who's job description matches that of an ACLU lawyer, a Union Grievance handler. These people have only one function in life, make things bad for someone. And their job depends on filing more of these so they encourage the effort. After all, if there are less grievances there are less of these people needed. So their livelihood depends on seeing that people remain unhappy which is the foundation of the grievance process.

This processor found that officers hurt off the job were given leave and equated that to pregnancy which is a condition that is caused by off the job activity. They filed the suit. An arbitrator made a ruling that since both conditions were caused by off the job activity, both should be treated the same. The city had three choices. Break the law, follow the arbitrator's ruling or file a costly appeal. The city took the wimp out and followed the ruling which was totally wrong but their action may have been financially prudent based on the cost of such appeals.

Let's hope the ACLU's suit somehow hits the real issue here, the ability of a union to force employers to do things that are wrong because they fit union mantra's. Here is another reason to not elect B. Hussein Obama, he supports eliminating a secret ballot to have union representation and favors a card sign off. When the union gets enough cards, they win. They have the right to brow beat people to sign and let me be frank, I have been in a shop that was targeted, we were pressured and brow beaten to sign. They got enough cards that way to get an election but in the actual union "yes" vote less than half the number of cards signed. People bowed to the pressure and signed but voted their conscience.

And as for the reporter, I hope AP either provides some retraining or finds some other job for him quickly.

I believe the police need to rearrest Casey on the charges they have against her for the bad checks. Put her in solitaire confinement without visitation from family, lawyer etc... and no phone calls. She will break down due to NO attention given to her. She is getting a rush over all this; especially being around all the men who are giving her the attention; that is the security men, the police and her lawyer. She is enjoying all this and the flirting with the police, come on now. Your child is missing and you are flirting with the police. How long are we going to allow this to go on for? This is totally insane!

She does not care one bit about this little girl. She cares only about herself and what she can get from a person free of charge. This type of girl will go on and on without a care in the world. It seems to me the family and Casey only care about “Casey”.

How could they all be in the house and the parents are not even asking Casey about Caylee. This is absurd! I would be banging her head against the wall to tell me what happen to Caylee. This is why I believe the parents know more than they are saying and that’s why they decided not to take the lie detector test. I hope and pray someone finds her so she can have a decent burial. That’s the least she deserves. I hope Casey rots in jail for the rest of her life without a chance of parole. May the Dear Lord Bless Caylee where ever she may be.

It is time we fight back the legal way. It is time that names start appearing in the papers and on the news. It is timethese "juveniles" are no longer considered juveniles. You do the crime, your charged with time. "jail time,""Not Children and Youth time."

We as citizens have a right to be safe in our own homes as well as on our streets! Allowing hoodlums, animals or juveniles, which ever you prefer to call them to run free in our streets has got to stop.

To the parents of any juvenile that commits a hideous crime---- If the law states that the names of the juveniles cannot be released in the paper or on the news, then you insist the names be released. "You," yourself, release the names if you have to! I as aparent would not look down on you as aparent for doing this, infact, I would look upon you with respect. Shame on the juvenilenot the parent of the juvenile!"

Any youth that commits a crime should be expect to pay all medical and criminal bills that are caused by their offence, their parents should not have to cover these bills! I realize the juveniles can't pay now because of their age at the time of their crime, but they should be billed as soon as they become of age. Any insurance that pays the bills now should be entitled for full reimbursement later. If this juvenile is in debt for the next ten, fifteen, twentyyears or more when he becomes an adult, "to bad" they brought it all on themselves! They should be responsible for their actions!

Let's stop looking at juvenile criminals as children. If our juveniles want to commit adult crimes, then let's treat them as adults.

We have children killing and or maiming other children, we have children killing their family and friends, Kids are taking guns to school and to the streets, when is it all going to stop? It's not right!It has to stop! Look around folks we need to do something! Years ago such things were unheard of, parents were allowed to make their children mind, life wasn't as fast paced.

It is time for a change and we need to do it soon!

Still I think they could have acted differently like shooting the boy in the leg so that he would not have been killed. The lack of reflection makes people think the worst and that the authorities were too trigger happy at the time that Freddy was supposedly on top of the female cop with his hands around her throat. A spokesperson interviewed at the time of the boy's funeral said that the police only refer to the gang violence as the cause. There was no mention that they were going to get to the source of the problem.

As a result of the slaying police cars were burnt and there was an upsurge of violence that hit the street for a couple of days. The victim's family called for peace. When I heard the mayor reacting to the violence that occurred because of the slaying Mayor Tremblay only made a mention that he would not tolerate violence directed towards the police. Wouldn't it have been smarter had he apologized to the family first before he lashed out the perpetrators of the violence? It only goes to show that either the police are unprepared to contain potential violence or they could have acted with caution and not killed an unarmed young man. The family and concerned individuals would like clarity and transparency otherwise issues like this are going to continue because gangs will not disappear especially when they met with violence.

True the Latin community is young and in need of role models so that frustrated youth can vent their frustrations in a healthy manner. The mayor and his inept police personnel should be aware of this.

Kim Thompson of Grey Lynn in New Zealand faces a fine for constantly calling her cats. Her calls of "here puss puss puss" day and night were too much for her neighbors. They then dobbed the woman in to the local police because her calls were annoying them. Mrs. Thompson was charged with a disorderly behavior conviction and a fine.

An Auckland lawyer is now acting in defense of this cat-lover and is appealing to the high-court to clear the conviction. He says that Mrs. Thompson was only trying to feed her cats, and call stray cats so that she could feed them as well.

I truly hope that this ridiculous and unfair conviction is reversed, a warning would've sufficed. This shows how weak authorities are getting. Instead of catching serious criminals, we are convicting cat callers.

Newspapers outside of Cambridge soon began to write about the event, and at the same time mention the past days of Cambridge when the city went through some turbulent times in the 1960's. Referring to H. Rap Brown's visit to Cambridge in 1967 that broke out in social unrest, one newspaper said there was a clash between "Blacks" and "White" police officers. What the paper failed to mentioned was that the police force responding to the incident had with it at least three African-American officers.

Due to such reports, the recent Cambridge election was lauded by some that it was a sign that the city has come a long way, that some Caucasians are now "color blind." Being a citizen of Cambridge, I would say that many of its African American voters are also "color blind."

Not mentioned by media was the fact that two African-Americans who were commissioners for the past four years were unseated and replaced by Caucasians. The Third Ward of Cambridge is most notable, since it is predominately African-American.Those voters chose a Caucasian, Frank Stout, to replace incumbent Gilbert Cephas. Though this means while not all African-Americans of the ward voted for Stout, some did.

This recent vote indicates that many citizens of Cambridge, both Caucasian and African American, did not make skin color a priority, but focused upon the issues and the inner qualities of the candidates.

After Jackson-Stanley took the oath of office on July 21, she first gave God credit for bringing her, and Cambridge, to this point in time.

 

The hundreds attending the ceremony heard the new mayor say that Cambridge was at a crossroad. "We can either join together and work towards achieving greatness, or we can languish in the divisions of the past, and never live up to our fullest potential," she said.

Given the action of those African American and Caucasian voters who disregarded color and chose what they felt was best for the city, it appears that Cambridge will continue to join together for the betterment of all.

So Turkey had beaten Switzerland in what was ultimately only one game in a long series culminating in the European soccer championship. And I guess that's the most illustrative fact in the bunch. Anyone can get a little nationalistic, a little overheated (and only if you consider launching fireworks in the middle of dense population centers overheated), but here, in the middle of the Fatherland, the middle of eins, zwei, drei, work, work, work, there exists an almost insular contingent of Turks who have absolutely no way of relating to the well-oiled Deutscheclockwork that ticks and tocks to perpetuity around them. Of course, there are occasional culture clashes. The soccer championship doesn't help.

Within minutes, (tiny) cars erupting with red and white flags were blasting horns while cruising at near-Italian velocities down the residential sidestreet on which I was having dinner. And so, with little else to do (except follow through on my commitment to taste-test the seven different half-liter beers I had purchased earlier that afternoon - a losing proposition for all involved, i.e., me), I made my way down Reichsburgerstraße until I figured out where everyone was going: the U-bahn station.

The street was, by this time, so jam-packed with cars, Turkish and otherwise, that nobody was really getting anywhere. And so the party, which they may have intended to unfurl elsewhere, had sort of evolved into the street itself. Plenty of people had simply set up camp on top of their own cars, though it seemed like most had possessed the foresight to leave one friend in the driver's seat to man the horn. Those who found this too confining were weaving in and out of cars, wearing flags like capes and shouting gibberish (I have since been informed that this is actually a language, and one rather widely spoken).

Something interesting immediately caught my eye: riot vans! Here and there, in between the revelers, I could see very uncomfortable looking policemen (polizei, they say here), wearing something between astronaut apparel and scuba gear. I didn't see anything gunlike, but they had gleefully nasty batons. However, despite the Ragnarok unfolding around the U-bahn station, Germany's democracy did not capsize in spasms of police heavyhandedness. In fact, when they were not looking wholly bored, the riot astronauts were far more interested in their own paisanos than the Turks. A small Deutschecrowd had amassed near the winner's circle. The closer I got, the more I could understand their shouting. “DEUTSCHLAND! DEUTSCHLAND!”

Fine, be proud. It's been seventy years. For lack of a less pedestrian way to put it: whatever. But Deutschland wasn't even playing today. And if they weren't playing, and if they really were shouting “Deutschland!” and not “Switzerland!” (a not-impossible mistake to make, after the hefeweizen campaign I waged over dinner), then only one possibility remained. They don't like Turks.

As mentioned earlier, the cultural tensions are understandable. You couldn't find two more different groups of people, one of which is still quite sore over not being let into what is, for all intents and purposes, the world's five star executive lounge (the EU).

And yet, I tug my collar, a bead of sweat on my brow, and wonder: too soon?

The Germans aren't hateful people, they aren't bad people. They don't seem to exclude anyone, they don't protest foreigners (the division of labor awards that responsibility to the French) - they even keep their public bathrooms clean, which is, if you think about it, the ultimate sign of mutual toleration.

And I guess nationalism, no matter who it's from, really isn't so bad. But it's like an amusement park ride, or eating nine eggs a day: you can do it for a while, but there's a good time to stop, and it's usually sooner rather than later. Of course, being an American, I'm tempted to mince words and try to fly under the radar, since I would be cream-pied royally on the world stage for suggesting to anyone else how he should conduct his business, but I can't help worrying a little.

Ultimately, I'm sure it'll never amount to anything. The Second World War just about neutered every last vestige of Viking in the European continental personality. But when you have riot police pushing back angry Germans in the streets of East Berlin because they want marauding bands of euphoric Turks shipped back across the sea, and you have Sarkozy running around Paris half naked while his volk give émigré Muslims a cosmic backhand, one is compelled to wonder. Could culture wars become something more serious? Or is our generation - those of us who will inherit the scepter and throne, anyway - too much a band of dilettantes to cause a real, fist-to-the-jaw ruckus?