Alleged Shoplifter Dies During Apprehension Outside Walmart Store

Holiday shopping, especially during the ginned up "Black Friday" hysteria, is rapidly becoming rough stuff. However, it's one thing for things to get out of hand, and quite another for them to become fatal.

Death was the fate of an alleged shoplifter outside a Walmart in Georgia this weekend. According to a Reuters story appearing in the Chicago Tribune, a man accused of purloining a couple of DVD players was apprehended by Walmart employees and a "contract security guard" in a parking lot outside a Walmart. Possibly as a result of their zeal to subdue and maintain control of the alleged perp, the suspect died.

In some ways, Walmart provides a window into the world of downscale purchasing. In some cases, Walmart is the only shopping game in town; in others, it's brick-and-mortar's version of Amazon. Walmart has taken a lot of heat for its cutthroat business practices and predatory consumer pricing. Ask a political liberal about Walmart and one hears outrage. Then ask them about their Amazon account. "Well, that's different," I've heard more than once. Really?

For those on limited incomes, the Walmart "proposition" is alluring or unavoidable. It's easy to sit in a major city or its prosperous suburbs and tell Walmart customers to boycott the chain. In rural America's small towns, that's not such an easy formula to fulfill. The economics of scale and commoditized goods, something Mitt Romney knew only too well, work in Walmart's favor and against competition from small businesses. There's no easy answer to the Walmart-Amazon drive toward monopoly, but the death of a shoplifter is not the way to go.