having police present for a blackberry launch is useless. Just look at how police deal with traffic jam and think abt what can they really do for a similar situation involving humans instead of cars. Absolutely nothing. they would keep waving their sticks and let everyone get into the stampede and faint.

I can guarantee that most of the people who were at the launch were errand boys of rich Chinese/Ind mobile phone store owners who wanted to snap up the phones for cheap and then resell them in ratu plaza. I was naive enough to go to the Samsung Galaxy S2 launch a few months ago, expecting to be able to chat with some nice middle class Indos in the queue on my way to a bargain. The thousands of people who were there however all looked like car drivers or errand boys, and each one walked out with 5 phones. So everyone was upset because the quota was sold out so quickly.

OF COURSE this is going to happen! What is the minimum wage here? 1.4 million? How much are these phones discounted? 2.5 million (if you include free unlimited data plan bundled with the phone). So you are GIVING AWAY 2.5 million. This is worse than those alms hand-outs before Idul Fitri. Give away free money in a third-world country and you are asking for a riot, a massacre or at the very least a major embarrassment.

Its just a blackberry, and the discount is only ~ Rp2 mil. I wonder why people want it so much! I mean, to have 90 ppl fainted and 3 injured on 2 mil discounts is somehow ridiculous to me. They are required to bring their credit card, to me this simply means these people have the money, but why would you fight so much for blackberry? Just so you can show it off to your friend? If it is, they should really grow up.

i see police there as well... so obviously the blackberry guys have asked the assistance of the police. and obviously the police are incapable of doing their jobs. and very obviously they allowed the crowd to go hay wire like they allow every other anarchist and religious fanatics to burn and riot to their heart's content! then after that they blame the people who they feel have incited the riot (like minority religions) rather than the riouters... so damn typical... but obviously they rather do that cause they can get more money from it... the mindless fanantics are poor so the police won't lift a finger to prevent them from destroying anything... just wait and they will place the blame on the richer guys... profit!!!!! tell me i am wrong...

Millions queued across America for the iPhone when it was released and there was no issues. Simply because Indonesians lack the very ability to queue sensibly for anything, let alone a cheap Blackberry phone. Lack of education always comes back to haunt them. Education is not just about reading and writing etc, you learn to be civilised and patient as part of the learning.

As much as I like the people here you do have this ability to act as if you are the only one who is important.