I guess Best Buy pissed off the wrong guy..

[Joe]

KINGSTON, N.Y. - A lone gunman opened fire with an assault rifle Sunday inside a crowded mall in upstate New York, seriously wounding one person before running out of ammunition and being subdued by employees, authorities said.

The gunman began shooting inside the Hudson Valley Mall shortly after 3 p.m. in Kingston, nearly 90 miles north of New York City.

The 24-year-old gunman went into a Best Buy store and started firing. When he ran out of ammunition, he was captured by mall employees, police said.

Police did not identify the suspect.

State police Capt. Wayne Olson said the shooter fired a "significant number of rounds." He disputed earlier reports that the weapon was an AK-47.


An Army recruiter was shot in the leg but was not the target of the attack, said Lt. Col. Paul Fanning, a National Guard spokesman. The recruiter was evacuated by helicopter to an Albany hospital, where he was listed in critical condition.

The 20-year-old recruiter might lose his leg, Olson said.

A second victim, a 56-year-old man, suffered minor gunshot wounds to his left arm, thigh and leg. Two other people had bullet holes in their pant legs.

"We consider it fortunate that more people were not struck," Olson said. "Sunday afternoon in a crowded mall, it really has all the potential in the world to be a disaster."

The mall was evacuated after the shooting, but an unknown number of workers remained inside after police surrounded the building.

"Everyone was running and screaming. Then I heard the shots," witness Heather Craig told Fox News. "People were running over people. Other people were just standing there dumbfounded."

Ali Afshar, owner of a mall kiosk, said he saw the gunman being tackled from behind by two men who worked at a sporting goods store. "They hit him and took him to the floor and held him there," Afshar said, adding that the shooter was dressed all in black.

The suspect, who was from the nearby Saugerties area, was expected to be arraigned Sunday night or Monday on charges of assault and reckless endangerment.

All mall entrances remained blocked off by police Sunday evening.

Michael Bovalino, chief executive officer of the mall's parent company, said crisis counselors would be available for mall employees Monday.

"Our main concern at this point is the well being of those that were injured," Bovalino said in a statement.

I can't say i'm surprised when stuff like this happens, and thats sad.

[SackAttack]

I'm not surprised either.

99% of humanity turn into utter assholes when they don't get their way. I've seen 40 year old men who should know better reduce 16 year old girls to tears because they think they ought to be allowed to, say, buy video game software, copy it, and return it for a full refund. Or return a big screen TV two months after the return policy ends because they suddenly realize that it's more than they bargained for.

I've seen customer service reps get maced over the fact that they wouldn't price match a store 200 miles away.

This doesn't surprise me in the least. Consider people like this the next time you wonder why so many customer service reps don't give a shit. You're damned either way if you work in retail.

You don't get the credit if you do a good job, and you catch all the vitriol if people don't like the company's policies, or if you're somehow unable to magically conjure a PS2 out of your ass 5 minutes before closing time on the night before Christmas, or, heaven forbid, if somebody has to wait more than 30 seconds for a representative to work through a line of people waiting to find out if a DVD is in stock.

[Ragone]

I worked in retail for a few years before i moved on to better work.. and let me say this

Retail made me hate people, and made me for the most part look to find things in stores by myself without asking for help


Edit: My personal favorite is people who buy huge tv's the week before the superbowl.. and return them the day after.. effectively renting them for one use

[Suicane75]

Originally Posted by Ragone

Edit: My personal favorite is people who buy huge tv's the week before the superbowl.. and return them the day after.. effectively renting them for one use

Fuckin ingrates..............does that work?

[Ragone]

Originally Posted by Suicane75

Fuckin ingrates..............does that work?

yes.. it does, you'll have to pay a restocking fee at most big electronics chains.. but that will still be WELL less then what you'd pay rent a center.. or whatnot

[samifan24]

Originally Posted by Ragone

Edit: My personal favorite is people who buy huge tv's the week before the superbowl.. and return them the day after.. effectively renting them for one use

I worked at a Stop & Shop grocery store service desk and we got women who returned used grills without box or receipt the day after the 4th of July. The story policy was no questions asked and to give them store credit. After that, nothing surprises me anymore.

[EagleFan]

Okay, may favorite part of the story is:

When he ran out of ammunition, he was captured by mall employees

Dude, when you go on a shooting spree you need to either take yourself out or let the cops do it, not some pimply faced kid making minimum wage.

[Tigercat]

People of all walks can be fucking assholes.

People should know this before they take jobs serviceing people. But hello, the customer is not paid to be agreeable, the person working is. If you are working with horses, and one horse kicks you, do you kick the next horse right back for it? Now if one wants to be a rude or an unhelpful bastard to a customer who was rude first, you won't see me bat an eyelash. But all jobs are suppose to be a challenge in some way, and if one can't be courteous to a customer that has done nothing rude to that employee, than that employee deserves no consideration from me.

(*note this is not aimed at any poster or any specific person or buisness in the world. I just don't buy the whole employee-deserves-slack-for-their-behavior-because-
some-other-customers-are-assholes line.)

[GoldenEagle]

I wonder if they tried to make him buy 2 $25 gift cards.

[Suicane75]

Originally Posted by GoldenEagle

I wonder if they tried to make him buy 2 $25 gift cards.

Hehe.

[SackAttack]

Originally Posted by Tigercat

People of all walks can be fucking assholes.

Agreed.

People should know this before they take jobs serviceing people. But hello, the customer is not paid to be agreeable, the person working is.

Agreed. But under no circumstances should a customer service representative have to fear for his or her personal safety. EVER. I do not care how badly you feel the company has treated you, you do not have the right to make a 16 year old girl cry. You do not have the right to mace the representative. You most certainly do not have the fucking right to shoot the place up.

If you are working with horses, and one horse kicks you, do you kick the next horse right back for it? Now if one wants to be a rude or an unhelpful bastard to a customer who was rude first, you won't see me bat an eyelash. But all jobs are suppose to be a challenge in some way, and if one can't be courteous to a customer that has done nothing rude to that employee, than that employee deserves no consideration from me.

Oh, absolutely agreed, that the employee should be courteous to those who have done nothing to deserve rudeness. I just think you might find that's an awfully small sample size, given the expectations people seem to have of employees making 7 bucks an hour. I've had a mother in the appliances department send her child all the way over to the video game section to drag me back over to answer her questions, refuse to allow me to call somebody who might actually know something about a dishwasher, and then get pissed off at me for not having a clear, intimate knowledge of every product in the store.

And guess what? She's not the minority. This occurs on a regular basis.

And, no, that doesn't justify rudeness. All I'm saying is, when customers are prone to behave badly better than half the time, you shouldn't be surprised if the retail monkeys you come across stop giving a shit. The longer they're there, the more likely this is to happen, actually. And that's only going to get worse, because the spoiled brats who are causing these disturbances are raising children of their own. People who are habitually unable to understand that a product listed in the ad as "In Store Tuesday" is not available especially for them on Sundays, or who think that a price advertised two months ago should be honored now, because they were too lazy to come in-store or (heaven forbid) buy it online...these people are spawning.

(*note this is not aimed at any poster or any specific person or buisness in the world. I just don't buy the whole employee-deserves-slack-for-their-behavior-because-
some-other-customers-are-assholes line.)

Oh, agreed. But nobody ever went broke betting on the propensity for the public at-large to behave like assholes. Toss in the fact that a) the job doesn't pay much, and b) it's a constant fight for hours even in the best of times, and you can perhaps see where the various stresses might cause a less-than-optimal response.

Moral of the story: if you see a fellow customer behave like an asshole, call him on it. You'll earn the gratitude of the retail monkey, and you might even restore a bit of his/her faith in humanity.

[sabotai]

That has got to be the worst mass murder attempt I've ever heard of. A Sunday afternoon and he couldn't do anyone in. He picked the wrong profession. Guns are obviously not his thing.

[ISiddiqui]

Originally Posted by SackAttack

This doesn't surprise me in the least. Consider people like this the next time you wonder why so many customer service reps don't give a shit. You're damned either way if you work in retail.

Yep... I worked in a CVS for 4 years and most of us didn't care because of all the crap we had to put up with. When people get mad at you because you won't go through the non-offloaded stock to find the one thing that person needs, or when you can't show them personally where to find something in the store when there are 30 people in line, etc, don't be surprised when those people don't care about any other customer.

It seems like people decide they can be idiotic brutes to those wearing a store insignia. The "customer is always right" mantra has gone too far.

[Karlifornia]

Oh wow I was actually thinking about this recently. I am not surprised at all, either. Right after Christmas, we had a guy in the store I work at totally melt down because he had a gift card and couldn't believe that we were sold out of PS2's. After screaming at the Sales Manager, he stood next to the exit spouting things like, "This place is a fucking fortress!" "This huge store and you never have what I fucking want!!" "This is an evil place, and you are evil people!"

God. I had some prick give me attitude just today because we were out of World Of Warcraft. I tell you, the PC game consumers are the worst.

[SackAttack]

Originally Posted by RadioFriendlyUnitShifter

God. I had some prick give me attitude just today because we were out of World Of Warcraft. I tell you, the PC game consumers are the worst.

Because it's your fault that Blizzard is restricting supply because their servers can't handle the load.

You bastard!

[Ksyrup]

Originally Posted by Suicane75

Fuckin ingrates..............does that work?

It worked well for Brian on an episode of Wings, but then some shenanigans I don't recall screwed it up. Probably dropped the thing on the way back to the store or something sitcom-ish like that.

[Thomkal]

Coming from this area of the country and with my mother travelling there on Thursday, I was watching the various news channels to get more information on it. What a butchery they made of it, over sensationalizing it, taking as fact anything a witness told them they saw or heard. At one point it was 3 men, with two still hiding in the mall, with machine guns, 8-10 people injured.

And the questions they asked-Was it mass panic? Was there any sort of law enforcement control of the situation/evacuation of the mall? Just drove me crazy.

As for retail, I worked at Barnes and Noble for five years, and while yes you don't get your share of "difficult" customers, by and large my experience there was a great one, meeting lots of nice, regular customers and good employees.

My own personal "demon from hell" customer was when I was the magazine supervisor, and this guy was insistent we get him a copy of the latest Stereophile magazine. Had me opening up all the boxes in the stock room looking for it, calling other stores (after he complained to the manager) to see if they had it and could ship it to us. And in general was just very rude and demeaning to me. This happened on several occassions, but then on one of his last times there when I was working the register, asked to see the manager before he had even asked for anything.

The reason? I didn't say good morning to him. Thankfully extreme custormers like that were few and far between.

[Huckleberry]

Originally Posted by samifan24

I worked at a Stop & Shop grocery store service desk and we got women who returned used grills without box or receipt the day after the 4th of July. The story policy was no questions asked and to give them store credit. After that, nothing surprises me anymore.

What's wrong with that?

Sounds like Stop & Shop needs a new policy if they don't like it.

[KevinNU7]

How does this guy not get charged with attempted murder?

[panerd]

Originally Posted by Ksyrup

It worked well for Brian on an episode of Wings, but then some shenanigans I don't recall screwed it up. Probably dropped the thing on the way back to the store or something sitcom-ish like that.

I think somebody (Lowell?) drove a fork-lift through it.

[Huckleberry]

Originally Posted by KevinNU7

How does this guy not get charged with attempted murder?

Good question. But if he was just aimlessly firing his weapon, that could be part of it.

Sort of like how drunk drivers aren't charged with attempted murder.

[Cringer]

People are assholes, I have been saying this for years. Along with "I hate people."

I almost get giddy when someone in a car is nice enough to actually let me over into their lane when a four lane highway is shut down and everyone is being directed onto the one lane off ramp, and we have been sitting in traffic for an hour. God forbid you let someone in front of you because you might lose time being one truck length back from where you were.

And lets not get me started on when I was 19 and cleaning crap off of grocery store bathroom walls.....

[JeeberD]

Originally Posted by EagleFan

Dude, when you go on a shooting spree you need to either take yourself out or let the cops do it, not some pimply faced kid making minimum wage.

It could very well have been mall security...

[Ksyrup]

Originally Posted by panerd

I think somebody (Lowell?) drove a fork-lift through it.

Rings a bell.