Death of 'gentle giant' in Wal-Mart stampede stuns friends

Jdimytai Damour was a big man — 270 pounds, by one account — but a gentle giant to his friends, who said he loved to chat about movies, Japanese anime and politics. So on Saturday, they were still reeling from the violent and seemingly inexplicable way Damour had died — trampled before sunrise Friday, the police said, by rampaging shoppers running into a Wal-Mart store where he was working as a maintenance man for the holidays.

"If you wanted to know about a show, this was the guy, and he had a great sense of humor," said Jean Olivier, who met Damour eight years ago in the Rosedale section of Queens, N.Y., a few minutes' drive from the store where he was killed. "He was the guy who was always lively. He would have personally gotten out of the way if he knew they wanted that stuff."

Shoppers started lining up late Thursday night at the Wal-Mart, at Green Acres Mall in Valley Stream on Long Island, where DVDs, flat-panel television sets and other entertainment items were discounted to attract crowds on the traditional first day of the Christmas shopping season.

Damour, 34, who was known to his friends as Jimbo, or Jdidread because of his dreadlocks, got his job at Wal-Mart through Labor Now, an agency for temporary workers. He had been trying to hold back a crush of shoppers pressing against the store's sliding-glass double doors, the authorities said. Just before the store's scheduled 5 a.m. opening, they said, the doors shattered under the weight of the crowd. Damour was thrown to the floor and trampled.

Nassau County police were trying to determine what happened during the stampede but said it was unclear if there would be any criminal charges. Michael Aronsen, a Police Department spokesman, said he did not expect the department to announce the results of its investigation this weekend.

The Nassau County medical examiner has not announced a cause of death for Damour, who died just after 6 a.m. Friday, about an hour after the shoppers had burst through the Wal-Mart doors. Four shoppers were injured in the stampede.

Hank Mullany, the senior vice president of Wal-Mart's Northeast division, said in a statement that the company had hired extra security officers and installed barricades before the store opened, but "despite all of our precautions, this unfortunate event occurred."