4 Walmart employees fired after disarming gunman caught shoplifting

i am in high school and know alot about this. the only way you can get suspended is if you swing back. self defense or not. if you sit there and take it you wont get suspended

 

What a crock

 

i cant believe they got fired for that. i would have done the same dam thing

 

Money talks ... end of story.

These policies are designed to cover the business's ass. Lawyers and insurance agents working on behlf of companies to protect bank assets. That's what it comes down to. And as employees are seen as an expendable (and in the case of retail, easily replaced) asset, it is the employee who pays the price for violating policy, no matter how heroic their actions seemed. Protection of the tenets of the policy reigns supreme.

We may not like it, but that's the way it is everywhere. For those of you saying you won't shop at Wal-Mart anymore ... I can guarantee that Safeway, Kroger, Lowes, Home Depot, Kmart, Sears, Best Buy, and pretty much every other major retailer in America has the same kind of policy. In fact, they cannot get insured without it.

Now would they go to the level of firing the offending employee? I can't say as every circumstance is different. But the rule is generally the same. Fifteen years ago I worked at REI, and their policy was if you saw a shoplifter, to page a manager. But if anyone ... including the manager ... so much as stepped outside the building in pursuit of a shoplifter, it was an immediate fireable offense.

The reason ... outside the building, REI's workman's comp insurance was null and void .. meaning if you got hurt in the pursuit, it would be REI proper footing the bill. And they weren't going to let that stand. It was part of store policy, it was a policy I was required to sign to work there. I bet these people signed their policies too.

There is just all kinds of shit involved here, and without reading Wal-Mart's exact policy, I can't really comment on specifics. But let's put it this way ... if you get out of the way of the gunman, and the gunman then shoots someone in store, the law is going to say that the gunman was alone responsible for his actions, exonerating the store. If however an employee is seen to have done anything that might have agitated the gunman, then the store is on the hook. So policy is nearly always one of "hands off".

Such is the cold hard reality of decisions made at a distance by lawyers and insurance agents. Their concern is the statistics of the actuarial tables. Playing odds. In a given situation, lives may or may not be lost. But what do we need to do to protect company assets? That's where it ends for them. Again money talks .. end of story.

 

Wal-Mart didnt fire the employees because of they subdued the assailant. AFAIK Walmart doesnt give a shit about the assailant. Walmart fired them so that other employees wouldnt play hero in the future because sooner or later that guy is gonna pull the trigger and kill someone whereas the assailant probably just wanted to walk the employee out of the store and run. i dont agree with them being fired, but I do agree that them playing hero with someone with a loaded gun is quite frankly irresponsible.

 

O yeah I agree just saying if that was the case...

Ill try to make it quick....

I do not agree, at all.


They were not playing hero, far as they knew that guy was going to kill them.

Im pointing a gun in your back, stealing something and I say I dont want to shoot you.....do you believe me?

If you do, I'm sorry to say this your dumb.

I'm not playing hero when I take someone down for pointing a loaded gun at my friend, I am potentially saving my friends life, I am doing the right thing by trying to disarm the bad guy, disarm the situation, possibly saving innocent people.

Everyone has their .02 and I see yours and respect it, their is mine I hope you do the same.

I do look at it from every angle and I do agree IF they were trying to play hero then it wasn't very smart. If they were doing it because they were afraid for their friend/their lives, then I completely agree with it.






Also lets re-run the scenario a little off topic but go with me.




A guy comes in and shoot 3 people in walmart, 4 walmart employees take him down, wait for police.






Fired for disobeying rules?

Praised for stopping a shooter?

 

These situations create quite the conundrum. On one hand, self-defense is paramount to safety. On the other, a hands-off approach may have also netted a less controversial/tense situation.

A more likely situation is this: Same scenario, except when trying to disarm, the gun is discharged at least once, whether it's because the gunman pulled the trigger as reflex or had the trigger pulled for them. Had that happened this time, the response would have been completely different.

Disarming a dangerous subject is a great thing to do, but for Wal-mart loss prevention associates to do it is a dangerous predicament. They are not trained to diffuse situations or handle tactical combat situations involving a firearm, so I am glad this situation went positively for their safety, but I am concerned if others tried this, it wouldn't end so well. I'd say this is the exception, not the rule. Good for them having success, unfortunate that the company fired them (instead of suspension or the like), but without good training, most should not attempt this anyway.

A better option IMHO is to allow/encourage associates in general to be armed - it would be a strong deterrent to criminals knowing the 50 employees walking around may very well be packing heat.

 

all i gotta say is a 10/hr job is not worth my life or anyone elses.
what would have happened if they grabbed him and the gun went off?

 

This thread is depressing. There are a lot of really valid points being brought up...

haha This post is kind of ironic considering your user message title thing. I do approve of it however. Eric Church! Hell ya!

 

Agreed

 

Your aim is about 12"+ off target.

 

Having your employees armed? That could also turn ugly. A gun in the wrong hands, or making the wrong decisions, or not mentally capable, and obviously not trained......

My husband is part owner of a small company. I've asked him, "Why don't you carry at work?". And he says..."Because if I carry at work, I'll have to allow all my employees to carry at work"

It's one thing to be a private citizen being armed and protecting themselves and their family & homes. And a totally different ball game allowing your employees to carry while at work. There's a lot of liability and insurance issues. And not only that...does the employer have the right to invade privacy of the employees to make sure they are legal to carry in the first place?

The employees have the right to protect themselves. If any employer fires you for going againest policy.....so be it. Is that job really worth fighting for?
Take your LIFE (and your job loss) and go elsewhere. To hell with them!

 

when i was 18
3 21 year olds tried to kill me at a party....
i had brass knuckles on me and defended myself against three people who clearly stated they were going to kill me.

i went to jail for a year.
my charge...
assualt beyond the statutes of self-defense...

pardon me but if a motherfucker is going to kill you....
you stop him anyway possible

 

LOL that wasn't the point of that post.


The point of that post was, you dont want to kill someone so you shoot him in the shoulder because you have excellent aim and he will leave you alone.

So you shoot him in the arm, and his lawyer finds a way to sue you.....



However you shoot him in the chest and he dies, well dead men tells no tales.

 

Here's my take on it...........First, who the fuck knows whether these employees had any training as far as disarming poeple? Assuming they didn't is idiocy. The gunman assumed they didn't, he was an idiot. Maybe they were in the service before being Walmart employees. Secondly, Walmart's policy might have some merit had the dipshit with the gun been out in the middle of the store but that wasn't the case now was it? They had taken him back to some room away from customers is what I read. Different situation. Who can say how many people may have gotten shot in the store while the asswipe was allowed to walk the guy to the door to get away or how many may have been shot in the parking lot battling with police? That seems more dangerous than what occurred to me. That's like saying the people on the plane that took out the fuckers trying to fly the plane into the whitehouse on 911 should be ashamed because THEY put the rest of the people on the plane and people on the ground in danger. HORSESHIT! The perpetrators are who put other people's lives in danger. The people at the store are heroes just like the ones on the plane and this firing bullshit is complete fucking nonsense. Would they have been fired if the gun had been in Sam Walton's back? Bet fucking not. If I had a retail store of any type, I'd be proud to have people like them work there.

 

EXACTLY! and without mercy.

 

+1 !

It was still a good decision. Let's see dead or fired from fricken Walmart. If I had a business I'd offer those fired employees a job. We need more people to stand up against the thugs taking over our society.

 

Shooting someone till they stop/drop is self defense. Delivering the kill shot when they are down is murder. Beating the shit out of someone till they stop, self-defense. Beating someone with brass knuckles after they are down, attempted murder. Probably pleaded down to a lesser count.
Any time you act out of anger, a claim of self defense is no longer valid!

 

I would bet their job was the last thing on their minds at the time. When your life is at risk you will do anything to protect it. Did they do something wrong? I don't think so. They were protecting each other and their own ass. But since it is store policy then Wal-Mart did nothing wrong.

The same thing happened to a bank clerk not too long ago. A guy came in claiming he had a gun and demanding money. The bank clerk calls this robbers bluff and asks to see the weapon. The robber then gets scared and runs but the bank clerk runs after him and stops him. Well he got fired too. It was against bank policy to confront would be robbers like this. When asked about the firing he understood why the bank had fired him and was humble about the situation. He knew he broke company policy. It's sad that this is the way it is but that is how it is.

 

The reason for the policy is simple right? The cost of a single serious Worker's Compensation injury is between 10 and 100 times the value of a shoplifted laptop.

Companies *really* don't want to see their employees get injured - hit's 'em right in the pocketbook.

But once you start second guessing what someone does when his own life, or the life of his pals is in danger, you risk looking stupid, as in this case.

Bottom line? Walmart acted out of a fear of lawsuits and liability. But guess what's going to happen?