Wal-Mart employees catch dipshit woman

The BBQ Pit
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Some stupid fucked-up twit of a woman rear-ends a bread delivery truck at 60 MPH in a nearby shopping center yesterday morning, causing the truck to crash into a telephone pole, burst into flames, and kill the driver. She then walks to the Wal-Mart across the street, goes into a dressing room with some clothes, and changes, intending to leave.

Thank goodness for Wal-Mart (Sorry, it requires registration, but it’s free.)

Several Wal-Mart employees who’d witnessed the crash stopped the woman and held her for police.

First of all, you’re going 60 MPH in a goddamn strip mall?? (It doesn’t say this in the article, but it was stated on the news) - regardless, they do say she was 'well over the 40 MPH speed limit). And THEN you cause a truck to smash into a television pole and burst into flames, killing the poor guy who was just doing his job and delivering bread to Giant Eagle?? You stupid fucking bitch. You then deny this to police and make up several different stories about it?

This is the part that breaks my heart:

The picture included in the article shows the front of the van. I can’t even imagine how much this poor man suffered.

They’ve charged the woman with aggravated vehicular homicide, among other things. And while I never thought I’d say this, I may start shopping at that Wal-Mart again because of the employees there who weren’t afraid to detain a criminal.

Goddammit, what a way to celebrate our Independence Day.

(And yes, I realize that the woman is suspected to have a mental disability. I don’t give a fuck. There are plenty of people out there with mental problems who realize that fucking rear-ending something hard enough to kill them and running away from the site of the accident is WRONG. She obviously KNEW what she had done was wrong, and she fled the scene. Fuck that.).

Ava

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I’m glad they had the chutzpah to detain her, too.

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Umm… hang on… we’re praising Walmart here!!! Oh, ok, it’s the employees.

:smiley:

Seriously, well done!

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Wal-Mart is savage, ugly, capitalism at its worst, an eating machine that thinks nothing of devastating our culture, enslaving children in other countries, and devastating the lives and communities of thousands, even millions, to make a buck.

Wal-Mart employees, on the other hand, are mostly people like you and me. I’ve never felt any urge to give a Wal-Mart employee a hard time. Except maybe that once, in lay-a-way.

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This doesn’t really say anything about Walmart as a corporation, it just says that the people who work in them are regular, decent people who will do the right thing when called upon. In fact, part of the reason I hate Walmart and refuse to shop there is that they treat their employees like shit.

Good for those people, and if it were in my community I might pay a special visit just to thank those people and give them their props for what they did.

That woman has to be a sociopath. I wouldn’t even be able to walk or talk clearly if I had done something like that. I’d be so paralyzed by shock an guilt that I 'd probably just sit in my car and wait for the cops. I can’t imagine having any desire to go shopping afterwards.

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This lady must’ve been crazy… besides causing the accident and fleeing, did she expect to get away with it? The car is either owned by her or someone who would identify her as being the last to drive it (unless it was stolen) so she’d have to do what? Did she intend to start a life on the run right there? She must’ve been crazy.

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If you’re not even willing to entertain the possibility that a mental illness can reduce or eliminate culpability in cases like this, then you’re the dipshit.

Not all mental disabilities are the same–they come in a very broad spectrum, and affect people in many different ways. Most people with mental illnesses would understand that killing someone and leaving the scene is wrong, but that doesn’t mean that all people with mental illnesses would understand that.

If she didn’t think it was wrong, what would you have expected her to do? Wait around for the cops (who I suppose she’d expect to come, even if she didn’t think anything was wrong…)? :dubious:

I don’t think anyone in this thread is qualified to diagnose this woman or assess the level of her culpability. If she’s severely ill and psychotic enough to not understand what she’d done, then I wouldn’t think she’s a dipshit and I wouldn’t feel any anger towards her. This doesn’t in any way lessen the tragedy of what happened to the driver. :frowning:

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avabeth, I didn’t realize you were so near to the Canton-Massillon area. Howdy Neighbor! :slight_smile:
Horrible story. Just awful. I have stopped shopping at that particular Wal-Mart ages ago, not just because it’s Wal-Mart, but because of the high percentage of inconsiderate why-yes-I-WAS-raised-in-a-barn customers. But I agree that a visit is in order. Bravo for those employees.

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Here’s a link for people who can’t be bothered to register.

Meanwhile, irony alert:

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Was that a joke? That leads to a registration page. :stuck_out_tongue:

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But then again, If she’s that severely ill and psychotic, she should not be driving in a car, licensed or unlicensed. The anger should still remain…IMHO

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If mental-incompetence is the reason, how the hell did she get a drivers license?

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If she’s that ill and psychotic, then she’s not capable of judging whether she should drive or not–that’s an even “trickier” situation to judge then “I just killed someone. Is it OK to walk away?” If she’s so out of touch with reality that she truly can’t correctly answer the latter, I wouldn’t expect her to correctly answer the former. So I still wouldn’t be angry at her.

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My question as well. If the state let her drive a car, they are at leat partially culpable, it seems to me. States routinely ask on license applications if you have a history of siezures. You’d think they would ask about history of mental illness, too, though I don’t know of any state that does. At any rate, a person too sick to tell the difference between right and wrong should be in a hospital, not in a car.

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Stop “sugar-coating” it. Please tell us what you really think. Don’t edit yourself.

Overheard in the public restroom: “That’ll leave a skidmark all the way to the treatment plant!”

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Regarding the comments on why she was allowed to drive a car, it’s quite possible that the woman in question (assuming she is, in fact, truly unable to currently realize the implications of her actions) was sufficiently sane/lucid the last time she went to the DMV, and developed the mental illness afterwards. A friend of mine suffered under some delusions about a year ago, one of which was thinking that she was under constant camera surveillance in a reality TV show. This particular delusion was triggered by the speaker in a drive-through fast food joint. Now that she’s on medication, she’s fine. I can’t say that she ever failed to know the difference between right and wrong, but her perception of reality was way off. If, say, she crashed her car, who’s to say my friend might not have thought - in her warped view of what was going on - that the crash was engineered by whoever was controlling the show, and it was all a stunt because she was fine, and she was going to try to get out of the scene by ducking into a store?

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So, when you think we’ll hear the story about these WalMart employees being canned for leaving their stations?

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I appreciate that we should understand that mental illness may cause all sorts of behaviour.
However someone who will speed through a shopping mall, let an innocent person burn to death, then calmly try to escape by walking away and changing their clothes clearly needs to be off the street.
Mental institution or prison, depending on what the psychiatric assessment says.

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Or attempting to sue walmart because the employees made a false arrest or kidnapped her.

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Hey, neighbor!:slight_smile: I’m actually fairly new to the area - moved here for the mister six months ago. Nice town, so far! (We’re looking at houses in Massillon…it would be really nice if the ones in Jackson weren’t so darn expensive!). And most of those raised-in-barns customers seem to have moved over to Target…Wal-Mart might be safe again;).

And Metacom, my mother has substance abuse issues. Does it mean I can’t be angry with her because of those? No - I’m still angry with her. I may understand what’s causing her behavior, but it doesn’t mean I can avoid being angry. I have severe anxiety - my fiance gets pissed at me over it sometimes. Can I help the anxiety? No. But I also realize that he has the right to get angry about it because sometimes, it causes me to make stupid decisions. Just like this woman. It doesn’t mean others’ emotions stop because of MY problems.

I’m one of the most soft-hearted people in the world - I’ve cried for half an hour after hitting a squirrel before. This story affected me because it’s right down the street…somewhere we go almost every day. My fiance is often out at that time on Saturday mornings delivering newspapers, and he frequently travels that area when delivering- so yeah, it could have been him in her wake that day. And I realize that this woman MAY have a mental disorder, but I don’t think that excuses her. From the story, she apparently DID realize that she’d fucked up. If she was so far gone mentally, she wouldn’t have made an attempt to flee while trying to CHANGE her clothes.

I certainly do hope she gets the help she needs, but my sympathies still, for the most part, lie with the family of the dead man.

Ava