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Subscribe to RSSTwo shoppers at an Atlanta-area Wal-Mart have reported being pricked by hypodermic needles hidden in clothing, prompting an investigation by Georgia sheriff's officials who are urging others to be cautious.
A third shopper found a broken syringe in the pocket of a pair of pants at the Wal-Mart in Cartersville, about 45 miles northwest of Atlanta, but was unharmed, according to Sgt. Jonathan Rogers, a spokesman for the Bartow County Sheriff’s Office.
Rogers said the first incident was reported Nov. 22, when a woman bought a pair of footed pajamas at the store for her daughter. When the girl was putting on the clothes at home, she reported being stuck in her right pinky by a syringe, according to the police report.
When the officer asked whether she had been stuck in the foot area, the child said she was "unsure because I freaked out."
In another case, reported Nov. 27, a woman said that while shopping at the store two days earlier, she opened a package of bras and her finger was stuck by a needle. After telling the store manager, she was advised to seek medical attention and get checked for hepatitis and HIV.
Rogers said the sheriff’s department was reviewing store security footage for any clues in the case.
"We’re trying to identify who may have done that and why they might have done that," he said.
He said neither victim had any "medical issues that we know of," after the incidents. The syringes, which were all recovered, appear to have been unused, Rogers said.
Wal-Mart said it was working with law enforcement on the investigation, and taking extra precautions, such as adding staff in the women's apparel area.
"We're committed to getting to the bottom of it," said Dianna Gee, a Wal-Mart spokesperson. "We do believe it's an isolated situation involving this particular store."
Meanwhile, Rogers urged shoppers to be vigilant as they examine clothing.
"You naturally want to be careful putting your hands into places where you can’t see them," he said.
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Leave a Comment:
Maybe an OWS individual seeking revenge on Walmart. You know, those democratic supported hoodlums hurting the poor and middle class with their BS.
You right wingers are more likey to prick the poor than ows, democtratic hoodlums.
holy f**kin s**t really?
Ha. I'm just waiting to see the Fox News report: "Sources say an OWS individual seeks revenge on Walmart with syringes"
Ha. I'm just waiting to see the Fox News report: "Sources say an OWS individual seeks revenge on Walmart with syringes"
Talk about missing the boat my friend. Democrat's constituents are the middle class and poor. The Republican's is the wealthy. You either flunked your Government class or just drank to much of the Fox kool aid.
Middle class people like Soros the billionare or Obama's buddy George Kaiser (the billionare connected with the Solyndra scam)? Idiot.
Justiceforall-3257287
---Speaking of education shortfalls.....The Republicans ARE the wealthy, not is.
Now.....did your government class tech you that? Because they schooled you as well as your English teacher did.
Oh the irony..."teach" not "tech"
didnt solyndra start in the bush adm????
lol...brian don't throw stones in glass houses you tool !!! Irony indeed CW24.
Probably a teabagger trying to setup the OWS.
Of course someone would tie politics into this. What a world.
Daniel, they are the turds in the punchbowl for today. There will probably be more, I think.
Oh yeah....a lot of people seem to think blaming someone else will fix these problems.
I love it....everything is corrupt, except for my beliefs
When they said "Pricked", I must admit,,I thought they were talking politicians for sure??
Probably some antisocial person who did it for kicks or a neighborhood junkie. One woman and kid got stuck and somebody else found a syringe. Seriously, you all think this is unclaimed terrorist activity by some political group?
junkies don't have time to do stupid stuff like this. They're too busy trying to get drugs to be hanging out at walmart hiding syringes.
I live just north of atlanta and I know a lot of poeple in this area have started using needles. I'm not sure about other parts of the country but here there is lots of meth and pain killers and downtown atlanta they have issues with heroin. I had never heard of people shooting pain killers before until recently but it is becomeing more and more common. Who knows why they left unused needles in clothes pockets but junkies never think about the consequences of their actions so its not hard to believe. I hope walmart catches these people but walmart will always be a place where these kinds of folk spend their time looking for things to steal.
I am not surprised by this. I found glass shards in the pockets of a pair of sweat pants I bought at WM in Albuquerque. I took them back and the clerk doing returns got all huffy with me as if I was the culprit. There are some really strange folks out there.
Someone may have bought them, wore them, and then returned them
Yet another reason I can add to my long list of reasons NOT to shop at Wal Mart.
rebuttal, clearly you've never shopped there, or you are the manager of one...
Or anywhere, because this could be done at any clothing store by a sick person. Leave Walmart, politics and trolling out of it and think if this person keeps hitting different places how bad it would be, which is why they need to catch them.
I've been to two WalMarts in recent years. One was fairly clean and well stocked, the other was a dump. I don't shop there but I don't hate on WalMart either, its a business which happens to be providing jobs and savings to people who need every single penny they can get in this recession.
yup ! just another kind of"pricks"at the wal-mart !
I guess all the Wal Mart haters make over 100,000 a year, but for the majority of people who don't, I'd prefer having a place where I can buy toilet paper for $5 as opposed to $8, and hot pockets for $1 instead of $3. Now, when the supermarkets start having their shelf items at a comparable price so that consumers making this insanely low minimum wage can afford them, then we can hate on Wal Mart. As for now, for some of us, they are a necessity.
How about the Dollar General? They're cheap, and they don't have a virtual monopoly on retail. I don't care for Wal-Mart either, but I don't see how this incident has any ties to the company other than the locations where the needles were found. My guess is that whoever is putting those needles in clothing is just pulling some sort of sick-o joke.
Well said, I hate Wal-Mart...but I do shop there because they usually have the best prices.
"this could be done at any clothing store by a sick person. Leave Walmart... out of it"
But, but, this did happen at Walmart. So why in the world would we leave them out?
rebuttal53, you are suspended for a day for violating rule # 1 of the Code of Honor.
Then you would guess wrong. I don't make anywhere near $100K a year and I don't spend any more money on groceries now than when I did shop at Wal Mart. I stopped shopping there when I saw some of the items that I purchased regularly steadily climb in price....and when the workers at the ones in my area got so rude....and when it took me a half hour to check out because there were 5 cashiers working at their 20+ registers....and when they decided to remove some of the brand name items from their SKU lists to add in their store brand items that weren't up to par. I could give more reasons but I'm sure no one really cares except rebuttal53 and he's suspended.
I started shopping at different stores for different things and I'm still spending the same amount as I was at Wal Mart. I never bought meat there anyway so I was already making 2 stops. I am a diet coke junkie....I openly admit it....Wal Mart in my area sells the 6 pack of 12oz bottles for $3.98. I can get the same 6 pack at a local grocery store for $3.09. I also shop at Super Target for toilet paper, paper towels, etc...they are the same price or sometimes lower than Wal Mart. Every time I went to Wal Mart, I came out of the store aggrivated and tired. It just wasn't worth it for me anymore.
So yes I am a Wal Mart hater....and contrary to what a lot of people on here believe apparently...I am entitled to hate them and take my business elsewhere. If you want to shop there, knock yourself out...I really could not care less. Just don't bite my head off because I could die happy having never set foot in one again.
Good advice.
Good advice for your other appendages also,especially at walmart!
Most likely, some sick person or punk kid did this for fun. Kind of like the kids that threw a shopping cart out of a 4th story window at Target, nearly killing a woman, for "fun"..... We live in a twisted world.
I'm willing to bet it's either a current or former disgruntled employee trying to hurt Walmart through lawsuits, which you better believe are coming. Unfortunately, the way Walmart will handle this is to simply fire workers to cover the losses.
the idiots who did this need a few needles in their ass
my son was accidently stuck by a medical needle someone tossed in the street
it was the worst feeling ever for my son and me and my xwife at the time we were married
i remember all the crap he had to go through for test
made me cry
people whos minds are rotting and do this crap need to be removed from this planet
asap
im really tired of this hand slapping these idiots get from our corrupt justice system
do things right in prosecuting idiots and stop letting them out of jail just to do it again
we should have a law that says if a judge lets you go free and you are an idiot and you commit more idiot crimes
the judge should have to go to jail to
guarenteed this will stop alot of corruption in the court system
It's getting more & more dangerous to shop at MalWart.
to shop anywhere, someone is targeting Walmart out of revenge. It is not WALMART that is doing this. It is clearly someone that is tired of seeing them be bigger than Target.
Shame that just about everything that is un-imaginable is happening. Next we will have real vampires!
Will they glitter in the sunlight? Or be charred to a crisp? I need to know whether my photovoltaic-solar-flash-gun is going to make the grade when the undead armies are unleashed...
It is the well known diabetic retail terrorists hired by Target. Why do you think they call it TARGET anyway. No one has to make Walmart look bad. All you have to do is go into one of their filthy stores crammed with defective Chinese made crap and bad food that doesn't stay fresh as long as other retailers does.
This sort of thing gets headlines because it happened in a Walmart which, as we know, has thousands of stores and is therefore very well known. I was once stuck with a needle which was in the pocket of a business suit at Lord & Taylor in Baltimore. I reported it, L&T paid for my medical testing, and kept it forever quiet. Lesson to all - be careful when trying on all clothing regardless of which store you're shopping.
Soon it wiil happen all over, another opportunity for losers and scammers to get money for free
You are such a sweet person. So I guess if your family member is stuck you automatically become losers. Interesting how that must happen...from average person to loser because someone left a syringe in clothing...ummk.
I wonder if they came over in the container from China with the syringes in tow?
Homeland Security will soon be replacing the shortbus door greeters.
Good one Fire.
I work in manufacturing and we have received some weird stuff in containers from overseas.
A buddy of mine once found a scorpion in a pound of weed he bought. Maybe it is the Mexican drug lords!
My dad purchased carpet padding from Lowes years ago and a used syringe was embedded in the padding. He was stabbed in the finger. Thankfully he was ok and there were not any contaigous diseases. My mom and I took the syringe to Lowe's to tell them what had happened, they took the syringe from us and said they would contact us after they investigated - they never did. And when they were contacted about it - they acted like it never happend. It was scary for both of my parents - the whole family actually. Hopefully, the people that this happend to at Walmart will be ok like my dad was. Crazy people in the world....
Good post...lesson to us all to always keep the syringe and insist on the police being called on the spot if that unfortunately happens.
They didn't go high enough up the chain of command. When you don't get help from the local store, you next contact the headquarters (the CEO if you can find his/her name and address) and tell him/her about it and ask if your lawyer needs to be the next one to contact them. THEN you will get an answer.
Texas Mom, I had a lesson learned a few years ago about NOT going up to the highest one in the company. I bought a 2 liter of Dr. Pepper and drank from it 2 days. The last inch of the cola I poured into a glass and was ready to put my ice in when this about 1" X 2" glob came out. It was hard and had not disolved in the liquid. I picked it up, could tell it wasn't a piece of concrete, it was a very, very strange thing and had never seen anything like it. I called Dr. Pepper, they gave me a number in Atlanta (I think that was the city). The woman was very nice, told me to mail it to them, and they'd get back with me. My FIRST mistake was mailing the entire 'object'. Never heard back, I called and they said, "Yes, we received it and we're doing tests". Weeks went by, I called again, same reply. More time went by, I called and I was told, "We never received it".....I about hit the roof, and she replied we're still looking for it. Well, guess what folks, that was about 6 years ago and Dr. Pepper is still trying to FIND IT......I think they found out by testing that it was something they could get sued for and just plain lied about they couldn't find it. So a few calls went from 'yes we received it' to 'we can't find it'. I bugged them for months and got NO WHERE!!!!!!!! DON'T EVER send the entire sample to any company......I had no proof......NOTHING I could do.
This is very serious, as much as the anthrax situation in my opinion. If someone who has HIV is doing this to infect others or someone with hepatitis B, etc then there should be national coverage and breaking news on it to warn others.
"...Look for the Union label..."
You would not be able to buy much. If you only wore clothes made in union shop, that is US unions, you would go naked. From the time my parents bought their first TV set, until they became un-available, our family only bought Zenith TV. Made in the USA, high quality electronics, high quality cabinetry. Our last Zenith lasted > 20 years. The last TV we bought made over seas. There is very little consumer products made in the US anymore. I remember when the union label meant quality, Made in Occupied Japan meant it would fall apart before you got it home. My, my, how times change.
Probably came from the drugged up Chinese worker that made the clothes.
People are angry at Walmart, because they are successful. Has anyone ever thought what our unemployment numbers would be if all Walmart closed down? How many communities would have little if any other place to shop? No one is forced to buy from Walmart, tht is one advantage we still have in this country. If a person prefers to pay more for an item, and it is available at another store, they are free to go to another store and pay more. Sometimes if quality is the question, yes, go to the higher price store. I see the old time sales leaders, Sears, JC Penney are falling on hard times, while Walmart is holding its own through this recession. The one thing I fault Walmart for is trying to expand its base into where it is not wanted or needed. Sam Walton founded Walmart on the principle of selling to poor people, to save them money, and because they are more poor than rich, a better market base. Now Walmart is trying to expand into states that have very few if any poor, (the poor can't afford to live there). Walmart should stay out of areas where there are more rich than poor.
Sam Walton founded his expansion plan in the 70's by only opening up stores in towns with populations under 10,000. He did this deliberately because K-Mart's formula was to only build in towns with populations over 10K. He wasn't trying to squash out the competition or shut down every mom and pop business. His goal was to serve a sector of the population that was being overlooked. I don't think he started out bad, but when a company becomes a corporation, their only obligation is to produce a profit for share holders. Corporate ethics is a myth. When we get back to holding corporations to the same standards we hold humans to, we'll find a way to make it work AND make a living again. Until that time, CEOs are gods and we are grains of sand at the mercy of the tides of power.
I met Sam Walton when I was young. He promoted himself as a good ol' boy, but he was very crafty. Not malicious, mind you, but don't think his first thought was for "poor people". It wasn't. His first thought was for profit, just like any other business owner. However, I will say that since his death Wal-Mart has grown into an absolute monster. Yes, they employ a lot of people, more than our government, but that's because they tend to push other businesses out. Intentional or no, that is the result. Not to mention Wal-Mart has a virtual monopoly on retail, from suppliers to manufacturers. They also have a dangerous amount of pull in Washington.
syringes just one of the many "PRICKS" that you will find at WAL-MART
Wally World I worked in had a period of time where somebody was taking things out of boxes and replacing them with razor blades. Was occuring often enough the store manager had meetings with all 3 shifts to warn them about it. Blades were placed in a way sure to slice the hell out of anybody reaching into the boxes. Problem was mainly in hardware and sporting goods and whoever was doing it knew how to avoid the security cameras. When it finally stopped happening the theory was that kid(s) from the local state college were responsible and had, for one reason or another, left the area.
This is BS...set up!
I wouldn't be surprised if an employee did this. Who else would have the time and motivation? I used to work at Walmart and many people there hate their lives.