THE prospect of Christmas bargains stirred a crowd of American shoppers into a frenzy when the doors of a suburban Wal-Mart superstore on Long Island failed to open promptly at 5am on Friday.

Three minutes later, a Haitian-born employee, Jdimytai Damour, unlocked the door and was promptly trampled to death as hundreds of shoppers stampeded into the store. Many stepped over his body as they rushed for cut-price vacuum cleaners and DVDs.

Police were yesterday reviewing security tapes in the hope of identifying the front line of shoppers who had begun hammering at the glass doors on the stroke of 5am. Like countless other shops across America, the Wal-Mart was opening early for what has become known as Black Friday - the day after Thanksgiving that marks the beginning of the Christmas shopping season.

In the lead-up to Thanksgiving, television advertisements had been whipping up excitement about unprecedented bargains on popular consumer items.

Police said that around 2,000 people had gathered before daylight at the Valley Stream mall, about 20 miles east of Manhattan. By the time the shop opened, said Detective Michael Fleming of Nassau County police, the crowd had become a mob that was “out of control”.

Damour, 34, was a temporary maintenance worker who was knocked to the ground as the crowd surged forwards, smashing the doors off their hinges.

Other workers tried to fight their way towards him, but couldn’t reach him in the crush. He was still alive when paramedics arrived, but was pronounced dead an hour later in hospital.

“They pushed him down and walked all over him,” sobbed Damour’s sister, Danielle. “How could they do that?”

Another witness, Kimberly Cripps, said shoppers had behaved “like savages”. When staff announced that the store was being closed because an employee had been killed, “people were yelling, ‘I’ve been waiting in line’. They kept shopping”.

Times Recommends

• Henning Mankell: ‘If Wallander was alive, I wouldn’t be a friend of his’
• Secret society's skull and crossbones for sale
• Nigerian leader vanishes after medical treatment