A Maryland man was arrested after beating a 70-year-old woman in Walmart after her shopping cart bumped into his wife’s shopping cart while changing lanes.
According to the police, the man put the woman in her own cart and rammed it into the conveyor belt four times before she fell out of it. The man then flipped the cart on top of her. She screamed for help.
As she writhed on the floor, begging for assistance, the man and his wife stayed in their lane and continued to check out their groceries for about 15 minutes before leaving.
Man Arrested for Attacking Elderly Woman at Salisbury Walmart [WBOC] (Thanks to Michael!)
More From Consumerist
-
Kroger Manager Fired For Allegedly Attacking Man Who Handed Out Food In Parking Lot
-
Cops: Man Attacked His Stepdaughter Using McDonald’s French Fries As The Weapon
-
A Look Back At Customer-On-Greeter Violence At Walmart
-
Two Dog Owners Speak Out About Pets Killed During United Flights
-
Twitter Admits To Hack, Data For 250,000 Users Accessed
Absolutely despicable. This man deserves to spend some time in the man-love section of his local federal prison.
1) You lose points for double posting.
2) Prison rape isn’t a joke, nor is rape an acceptable punishment to suggest for any crime.
3) Before you wield your witty ‘stick up your ass’ joke, remember many people you mat or man not be aware have been raped. Think about it next time.
Re: “‘stick up your ass’”
Remove yours, and lighten up.
A person who is offended by an inappropriate rape “joke” does not have a stick up their ass and they don’t need to “lighten up”. They have a sense of decency and common sense that you apparently lack. I’m going add my support to NickelMD’s comment #3. You don’t know if the person you’re talking to has been raped or has a loved one who was raped.
And before anyone thinks it, no, I’m not saying that comment applies to me or anyone that I know (that I’m aware of). But rape is very common – it’s not absurd to assume that someone in any given conversation has been hurt by it.
I wish I could heart you for this comment.
Amen. Here’s the best I can do given the circumstances:
Mmm…kay? It didn’t show
Cue the thought police…
So the Walmart checker just kept on scanning stuff?
If someone was attending to the victim, I applaud the checker for continuing to scan. It kept the moron in the store until police arrived.
If she had refused, moron would have left and made it harder to find him. Or worse, the checker could have faced his wrath.
Ok, I just RTFA.
They still made it out and drove off.
Dispicable.
Is there a button on the register for “stop scanning because customer is a nut job?” If not, the cashier likely had no idea what to do other than try to call the manager by flipping the switch that makes Mr. Smily blink on and off. And that would seem to be somewhat inappropriate in this case.
Must have been the most awkward scan job of that cashier’s career. “Um, so do you want your Lithium and Xanax in a bag or are you going to hang on to them so you can take them right away?” “Hmmm?” “Hmmm?” “Ah, yah. I’m guessing you want to hang on to them…”
Yeah the article has no mention of anyone helping the woman. Sadly, it does not surprise me.
I saw a man fall on icy steps outside a diner years ago, from my window booth. Blood immediately started pouring from his head, easily visible on the snow and ice. He was motionless, knocked out, and I saw no less than 10 people walk past him on the steps gawking as I got out of my booth and went out to help, while I sent my friend to the car to get a blanket to place over him. No one else in the diner came to help, they all just kept eating their dinners and staring.
I had asked the hostess at the diner to call 911 as I went past, but apparently she did not, perhaps not wanting a scene at the diner. I had to send my friend back inside to use the payphone to call 911. (This was 15 years ago, neither of us had cell phones.) I tried to stop the bleeding with pressure and keep him covered with a blanket until the ambulance arrived. Hopefully he was OK. But I will still never get over how nobody else helped him.
http://www.psychwiki.com/wiki/Bystander_Effect
These experiments have always amazed me.. and this is a PRIME EXAMPLE of this.
You’re not alone — and, alas, this sort of “it ain’t MY problem” attitude is nothing new. Back in the ’70s, I saw a gang converge on a couple on a New York street. I’m not Sonny Chiba. I didn’t jump into it. But I did go to the nearest store and ask them to call the police.
They refused.
I asked if I could do it, using their phone. Nope. That would “involve” them.
I went next door to a hotel. Nope. But they did direct me to the pay phones (hey, I did say this was in the ’70s).
I called the cops, and they arrived really quickly, breaking up the encircling toughs and rescuing the couple.
Ever since, I’ve had mixed feelings about the whole thing. I feel good about what I did, little as it was. And I’ve never escaped the disgust at how the locals responded.
There’s a famous case from, I believe, New York City in the 1960s that involved a woman being killed outside an apartment complex. Her attack was witnessed by well over a dozen people, maybe more, and no one did anything. The worst part? The guy initially attacked her, LEFT, came back an hour later, and FINISHED THE JOB. All while no one did anything to help her.
Kitty Genovese, that’s the name. And, sorry, it was 10 minutes later that he came back not an hour.
The store owner probably felt there would be retaliation by thugs if he called the police. It is sad.
There was a robbery and shooting in my city last week (thankfully no one died, they got to hospital immediately) but the liquor store owner who called police when he saw the shooting outside on the street, was identified in the newspaper as calling the police. “XYZ liquor store phoned 911 when he heard gunfire outside his store.” The shooter is still on the loose.
I cringe to open the newspaper over the next couple weeks. I fear I will see an article about the shooting of a liquor store owner…
Good for you for stepping up. I
i was in belgium a few years ago, sitting outside the hotel just enjoying the view when an elderly woman walking by fell and broke her nose and skinned her knee. i went over to help her and her daughter and provide a pack of kleenex that i had in my pocket. incidentally, there wasn’t anyone else in the square.
as we were walking her around the corner to the clinic where she was headed anyway her daughter realized i was an american and expressed a great deal of shock that an american would help out like that. she told me that from what she knew from movies, tv, etc, that americans didn’t do things like that.
i suspect that sometimes movies and tv are more true than i like to believe
That is so sad! It is nice you were able to change her view of Americans.
It may have been a self-checkout lane.
Do Walmarts have self checkout?
Yes. Well, maybe not all, but all the Wal Marts I visit now have self checkout.
I usually “bag” the lady’s, after I “check them out”.
I don’t get it, did she ask to see his receipt or something?
OK, where was ANYONE at Walmart while all this happened?
When asked for a comment, Walmart spokesman Dan Fogleman issued the following statement to WBOC:
“While I can’t share with you our specific policies as they relate to in-store security operations, what I can tell you is that we want to always provide a safe, comfortable environment for our customers.”
http://www.wboc.com/Global/story.asp?S=13350753
Terrorizing folks who wouldn’t show their receipt at the door?
Clearly this was “strictly business,” and not personal. Michael Corleone would be proud.
Wow…almost as horrifying as the incident itself is the fact that no one at the Walmart intervened and the perp was allowed to continue shopping for 15 minutes before leaving. Evidently, despite the elderly woman’s pleas for someone to call 911, police weren’t contacted until the woman was in the Emergency Room.
Talk about despicable.
That’s because the majority of Walmart shoppers probably have outstanding warrants or don’t trust the police.
Agreed. In order to keep my faith in humanity, I have to assume that at least ONE person in that Wal-Mart called police (even though it was neither stated nor implied in the article).
In the midst of my outrage, I have to admit that if I were standing there while this happened, I don’t know that I would be able to physically jump in and stop this guy, either. I like to think I’m a fairly tough chick, but I’m not tough enough to not end up as just another victim.
nobody intervened…
i must leave this world before it is destroyed…
Too late.
Honestly, it isn’t that uncommon for people to not get involved.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bystander_effect
I think a lot of people don’t get involved in stuff like this simply because of fear & their self-preservation instinct. I wish my boyfriend & I had been there though. He’s about 250 lbs of pure muscle, he would have beaten the SHIT out of that guy
Meanwhile, Wal-Mart security was otherwise occupied in arresting a person at the door who tried to leave without their receipt being checked.
Seriously….15 minutes? Where was security? Didn’t anyone attempt to stop this guy? Help the victim?
BTW, this guy looks like a creepy egg with giant eyes painted on it.
And how did he come up with the 100k bond? That is at least 10k cash.
“BTW, this guy looks like a creepy egg with giant eyes painted on it.”
lol he totally does
Darn it, I can’t see the picture!
Bail bondsman. He probably would have to come up with a smaller amount and then have bounty hunters set on him if he skips out.
That’s what the commenter was saying. A bail bondsman will, for a 100k bond, charge 10k. If you want to bond out, you have to pay 10% that you’ll never get back.
In answer to the OC’s question, in many places you can place property up as a bond. Real estate, mostly.
Not only did he put his hands on a woman but she was 70yo. How sad for her and how disgusting for him. Im sure his wife gets a taste of that at home too. Let me go ahead and get the “If I was there…” Comment out of the way.
If I was there I would have totally kicked his a**
Before you starting feel too badly about his wife, this is from the article:
Police said that Crockett and his wife “became enraged,” and shouted racial epithets at the victim.
Sounds like they deserve each other.
Yea, I read that afterwards. I have no sympathy for either lowlife
I know a lot of people can just say that… But I agree with you. I would certainly do the same. The fact that people watched that happen and did nothing makes me feel like all hope is lost for humanity.
Why on earth would they let him check out after that?
Glad they did though, gave the cops time to respond
No it didn’t…according to the article, the cops responded to her complaints of an assault in the local Emergency Room. From there, they began an investigation and looked at the security footage and eventually caught the thug.
It’s Wal-Mart. If the checker had done anything other than check him out, she would have been fired.
They have a fiduciary responsibility to their shareholders to maximize profit. Having this “man” arrested prior to him paying for their chinese merchandise would be a fireable offense…and wal-mart would have a decent case against the employee to reimburse them for their lost profit, attorney’s fees, emotional distress and punitive damages to teach americans publicly traded companies OWN the POLITICIANS AND JUDGES.
ethics and morals that conflict with maximizing profit must be disregarded.
Police reports are almost always exaggerated, and sometimes fabricated — but how would that make that stuff up? Good lawd
I need to hear his side of the story before I pass judgment.
How hard did she ram his cart? How much of a threat did she pose? Did she get their groceries mixed together. That can get very stressful.
Don’t jump to conclusions, people.
Hey there, can you spell TROLL?
I think, in this case, it’s spelled “S-A-R-C-A-S-M”.
Dude, she was 70. Get over yourself.
You’re totally right! I mean, we don’t know if she rammed his cart hard, right? I mean, if she did ram his cart on purpose (and face it, she probably did), then it completely justifies assaulting her and screaming racial epithets at her. Right??!? Right!
He’s kidding.
I tried to read it in Andy Rooney’s voice, still didn’t get it
“You ever notice how people don’t like it when you bump into their cart at the supermarket while you’re buying your Pepsodent and Metamucil?”
Hey! You got your peanut butter in my chocolate!
Hey! You got your chocolate in my peanut butter! And now I’m going to kick your *ss!
While I’m not in favor of putting a beat-down on a 70 yr old woman, I must admit that I’ve fantasized about it. Some of these old biddies will ram their carts into you – HARD – and not apologize. Or they’ll push your cart out of the way – not even ask to be excused. They’ll cut right in front of you. They stand there counting pennies after the transaction is done – holding up the line.
Who knows what transpired in the store before it got to this point? Maybe the old woman had smashed into him several times and he’d had enough.
Honestly, I don’t care who it is – someone smashes a cart into my wife, they’re going to have a problem after that – depends on what happened to my wife as to how far I’d go in dealing with the situation.
As for intervening during this situation? Sorry – not my problem. It’s either HER problem, or Wal-Mart’s. But unless this person is going to be attacking me, and I happen to have a loaded firearm on me? I’m not going to touch that shit with a 10′ pole. Besides, the whole thing probably happened in less than 30 seconds…
Finally – this could probably be blamed on Wal-Mart not having enough cash register lanes open. Probably the usual 2 lanes open out of 30 that could be used thing…
I’m guessing you’re either a troll, or don’t read well. She ran into his wife’s CART….not his wife.
You, sir, are a very sick individual.
SplendortheCheap was joking. You are not. Scary.
Honestly how could anyone just sit there and not help? Security? Cashiers? Shoppers? I am not sure how I would react when seeing something like that but I can’t imagine just ignoring it like nothing happened. You have to wonder about people. It seems if someone was shoplifting security would be on it like stink on poo. So this attack happens and she lays on the floor writhing in pain and the suspect sits in line another 15 minutes checking out. Wow…no other words to use to imagine WTF happened.
Since a Walmart employee will get fired for defending himself while being beaten by a shoplifter, what do you think would happen if the cashier stopped scanning items and went to assist the lady? Heck, if the cashier so much as SLOWED DOWN SCANNING, he/she’d probably get an ass-reaming, if not fired.
Now that I have a cell phone, it would have come out fast as lightning to dial 911.
If you get involved and there’s a lawsuit, you’re entangled in it. One reason no one wants to get involved.
If anyone helped this woman and something went wrong while they were helping, I believe they can be sued as well. Second reason no one wants to get involved in anything.
Not defending them by any means, those are just two reasons that I’ve read why people don’t get involved in stuff like that.
There are good samaritan laws in most states to protect people who try to assist others. Check your state laws.
For instance, if you perform CPR on a heart attack victim, in most states they cannot sue you if you break their ribs.
I don’t know that, if I were a Wal Mart cashier, I would jump into this fray. But I DO know that I think I’d be calling for security and hauling ass away from checking these crazy people out.
He stayed there FIFTEEN MINUTES and no one did anything? No security? No police response? When did anyone make a 911 phone call? That just seems like a crappy response time for EMS/police, which leads me to believe that 911 wasn’t called for some time after the assault took place.
If you steal something a minimum wage worker will risk life and limb to stop it. If a elderly person is being harassed, it’s not my problem.
Do they risk life and limb by calling 911? Really?
After seeing this guys picture I’m convinced if someone would have turned one of those glowing bug zappers he would have hovered around it until police showed up 3 days later.
How is basic assault a federal crime?
Ehh. I’m sure you could find a PATRIOT Act violation in there somewhere.
It’s funny because it’s true. Or is it sad because it’s true? Not sure…
dn’t blv sd t ws. smpl sd wht fl ths g dsrvs s pnshmnt. Jst t f crst, d y lb th stck n yr btt r jst g dr?
Hey, YOU said federal!
Fine. Put him in the man-love section of his local jail. Talk about splitting hairs
d0, are you aware that both of your posts have an “anus penetration” theme going on?
That is correct. My assumption is that Alvis is posting from his local Fed Pen.
Winner.
Maybe not basic assualt but assualt upon the elderly would be.
city, county and state laws not federal. He’s not saying it isn’t a crime merely that it is the wrong prison to be getting love at. For this the guy goes to county.
terroristic threats, hate crime against a protected class of citizen, causing financial loss to a corporation (this is the most serious of the crimes)
Hate crime automatic sentence enhancement.
About time those damn lane-changers got put in their place!
Just kidding, I’m sure no one helped because they thought the old lady was on sale, and the guy was just having trouble with the self-checkout kiosk.
15 minutes at the checkout lane?
Was it the self-checkout or what?
Where the hell was everyone, that no one couldn’t help her? And where was security?
Walmart doesn’t have security. They have loss prevention personnel. There is a difference.
If the 70YO had just take C. Everette Koop’s advice and gotten Life Alert, she could have called for help when she couldn’t get back up.
Dude looks like the crackhead leprechaun…
http://bellyshirts.files.wordpress.com/2009/10/leprechaun_sketch.jpg
WalMart is like New York City in the 70′s, except scarier.
And no one raced up and beat the shit out this guy? Way to go, human race.
From the article:
Police said that Crockett and his wife “became enraged,” and shouted racial epithets at the victim.
That bit of info (in combination with the picture of the guy) makes me think that this wasn’t your run-of-the-mill case of guy-losing-his-shit. Almost seems like there’s a bit of hate crime sprinkled in there too.
All violent crime is a hate crime. The fact that he’s a bigot doesn’t change the fact that he assaulted someone.
THIS is why I don’t shop at Wal-Mart. And to everyone who has recently been complaining that Consumerist only posts articles about Wal-Mart – it’s because this kind of shit doesn’t happen anywhere else on a daily basis. It’s absolutely disgusting, yet fascinating, and I will keep reading Wal-Mart posts.
LMFAO, this is awesome. Talk about some WWE type shit. Put her in the car and then rammed it into the conveyer. LOLZOR.
Ok…that’s bad but…
I’m picturing the dude setting the woman in her cart and ramming it repeatedly. “How do YOU like it??”
I wonder if she was in the child seat, or the back part?
What an a***… sounds like he fell out of the shopping cart too many times himself.
If anyone wants to see the court record for this loser, click on the link, check the box to agree to the terms and click on the “Continue” button, then just click on the link again (or copy the URL and paste it in again after agreeing to the terms).
wait, what? apparently his mixed ethnicities don’t make him think twice about making racial comments?
for those of you who don’t want to click through:
“Defendant Name: CROCKETT, JAMES RUSSELL JR
Race: WHITE, CAUCASIAN, ASIATIC INDIAN, ARAB
Sex: MHeight:510Weight:180DOB:02/26/1986″
you’d hope he’d be more tolerant
I’ve seen that on plenty of court records; I think the Maryland MVA and/or courts just use that as longhand for “white”.
As with most local news stories, we’re missing a whole lot of critical information.
How did they catch this guy? What steps did WalMart take to stop, document, and report the assault? What were the woman’s injuries? How many witnesses spoke to police?
I don’t know of any place in the US (and I’ve been to many) where a man could beat an elderly woman for 15 minutes and nobody would intervene or call the police. Even in a WalMart.
Is it just me, or does that mugshot look a lot like Eminem?
Prison rape is hilarious and often deserving for the people there. I can say this because short of some amazing circumstances I’ll never do anything dumb enough to go to prison.
He is NOT a MAN he is a coward !- The report said he was arrested after “beating” a 70-year-old woman in Walmart after her shopping cart bumped into his wife’s shopping cart while changing lanes.
It bothers me that NO one stepped in and put a stop to this. He needs to go to jail where the inmates
can hear how brave he was, most likely he will get a ass beating on a daily basis.
where was security?
where were the receipt checkers?
WHERE WERE THE MEN OF CONSCIOUS?
When was the last time you saw a conscious man? (Remedial English being offered in room 222 at 7:00 p.m.)
Did he get stopped at the door for not having 93 items on his receipt and 96 in his cart?
This is why I shop at Walmart….because they are open in the middle of the night when there are a lot less people around. If I had to shop with all those people with 20 kids screaming, running around, blocking aisles, bumping into you etc I’d probably lose my shit on some old lady too. Much easier to dodge stockers than billions of people.
What a thoroughly disguising human being. Seriously… screaming racial slurs at and physically harming an old lady? Who does that? No matter her ethnicity, I couldn’t look at a little old lady without thinking of my own grandma and who could beat up his grandma with a shopping cart???
I mean, it’s one of those stories where you read it and kinda give a laugh just because it’s so absurd to brutalize an old woman for bumping carts of all things! Then I get pissed that this guy was allowed to leave the store and it took police two days to track him down!! Considering stories of people being arrested for credit card and gift card glitches or Walmart prosecuting teenagers over $3 bracelets, I’m outraged that a human being could be so victimized right at the front of a store and the criminal is allowed to walk away with his merchandise.
I must ask: did the person at the door check his receipt as he left?
OK . . . THAT’S it . . . I will never shop at Wal-Mart again !
(Well, at least not unless their prices are better than anyplace else).
From http://preview.tinyurl.com/29re7km
1) ASSAULT-FIRST DEGREE
2) ASSAULT-SEC DEGREE
3) RECKLESS ENDANGERMENT
4) DANGEROUS WEAPON-INT/INJURE
5) DISTURB THE PEACE
6) DISORDERLY CONDUCT
One of the many examples of why I don’t shop in Wal-mart, (or live in Maryland anymore either).
My motto? Life’s too short to spend any of it in a Wal-mart.
This is exactly why I won’t live in New England.
I wish news media would do their research before posting lies. The woman ramed her cart so hard into the pregnant wife’s stomach (yes, stomach, not cart) that she had bruising. The man did not put this woman in her cart and rammed her into the convayer belt. He did ram the cart into the belt out of anger but he did not hurt or touch this woman. Please actually look into stories before you post them. You are ruining a good man and woman’s reputation and lives. This man’s career is on the line now too because of these lies.
This sounds like it should be the next topic for “What Would You Do?”
More people should push for a concealed carry law. When I went for mine there was a woman in her seventies that did just fine. If she was armed he would have sat there and waited for the police or got shot. I would even bet that the useless cashier would have picked up the phone and called for her. All this guns kill crap well tell that to the lady in the emergency room while that idiot is off beating his wife or more likely kids. Guns don’t kill people do.