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Associated Press - November 25, 2009 3:15 PM ET
VALLEY STREAM, N.Y. (AP) - Retailers nationwide are looking to make Black Friday safer a year after a wall of frantic shoppers trampled a guard to death at a Walmart store on New York's Long Island.
Wal-Mart Stores Inc. is among companies instituting new procedures after the death of security guard Jdimytai Damour (jih-mee-TREE' dah-MOR').
The company is keeping its stores open 24 hours on Thanksgiving Day. That will make it unnecessary for shoppers to converge outside for pre-dawn openings.
Other changes include handing out maps so shoppers can quickly find hot sale items, and keeping those items far apart so big crowds don't form. Other retailers are making similar changes.
Prosecutors considered criminal charges after the guard's death. Instead they let Wal-Mart Stores pay a nearly $2 million settlement after it agreed to the sweeping changes.
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