If you work at Home Depot, you’re not allowed to “accuse, detain, chase or call the police on any customer for shoplifting,” according to an internal memo. 4 Home Depot employees in Midwest City, OK found out the hard way that Home Depot is serious about this policy. They were terminated because they “pursued and assisted in the apprehension of suspected shoplifters.” From KOCO:
“We saw them with the merchandise. We saw them run out of the store. I never kept my eyes off of them. Then when we asked them for a receipt, and that’s when they dropped the merchandise and they kept running. One guy still had a chainsaw while he was running, and that’s when the cops tackled him,” he said.
The letter said Stewart and the others were fired because “he pursued and assisted in the apprehension of suspected shoplifters.”
Stewart said all he did was call police, something he’s done before. Less than eight months ago, he said that he received a letter — a commendation letter — for helping police catch a thief trying to steal $2,500 worth of wire.
On the top of the letter, written in bold letters was “Great job, Bob.”
All we know is that we are not brave enough to tackle a man with a chainsaw. —MEGHANN MARCO
Man Says Home Depot Fired Workers For Catching Thieves [KOCO]
(Photo: jclarson)
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“Shoplifting” is a crime only if Home Depot *says* it’s a crime, since they are the “victim” here. Otherwise, it’s just a really good discount. If they want their employees to allow people to walk out with stuff, that’s their prerogative. You get paid to do what your employer says to do. If you want to be Mr. Junior Crimebuster, join the police.
Now, if they got fired for stopping a rape, or refusing to dump old insecticide in the creek out back, well, that’s different. Those are real crimes. They’d still get fired, but at least they’d be in the right.
@trai_dep:
trai-I also grew up in a time where I ran where ever I wanted and talked to plenty of strangers and I too am fine. I never mentioned anything about cowering in fear nor did I say anything about the world being a terrible, threatening place. I simply stated if I “saw” a child being abducted I would do whatever I could to stop it and worry about why the child was being abducted later. Please point out where in my response I am thumping my chest about these evils in society?
I do believe in the case of shoplifting there is absolutely no reason to go “Rambo” over some product, but your point was that most abductions are by parents so we shouldn’t be concerned or get involved. So take you own advice, get educated and re-read my post. I said “if I see a child being abducted I’ll go after the abductor 100% of the time”, I was simply stating when it comes to a more serious crime of child abduction, if I see it in progress I will try and stop it because in the era I grew up in people cared about each other and tried to help someone out who was in trouble.
Also, please educate me. Can you give me sources for your 98% abduction claim? And I guess from your response those other 2% (if your numbers are true)aren’t worth trying to stop because it is all hype, huh?
I used to work at a Food Lion in college, and we’d sit in the office and watch people shoplift on the security cameras. Couldn’t do anything about it. I worked there for a year, and there was a woman who came in every single day of every single week – holidays included – and stole a pack of cigarettes every single time. We knew it, she knew it, store manager didn’t care.
@zirkus:
@zirkus:
@justbrag: Dude, my point was that an average store clerk isn’t trained to make that judgment. This story mentioned that a clerk cannot even call the police for shoplifting. If not false imprisonment, what “potential liability” is HD trying to avoid in that case?
@zirkus: Sorry, I guess I came off sounding like an ass. Didn’t mean to hit you with a “you’re wrong” twice–just wanted clarify that I don’t think HD is as concerned with the two intentional torts you mentioned as they are with negligence liability. I don’t work for and don’t advise HD, so maybe intentional torts are a concern of the policy makers.
The possible negligence problems are limited only by your imagination. First one that comes to mind: HD tells its employees it’s ok to call the police when they see someone shoplifting. We know there’s no liability there, and we know the shoplifter can be reasonably detained. However, Cashier X thinks that “calling the police” means it’s also ok (under company policy) to detain Shoplifter T until the police arrive. So X chases T out of the store, and knocks over Shopper G, who falls and breaks her hip.
Add in factors like what the police might do, the actions of Good Samaritans, new employees, etc. and you can just imagine the dollar figures flashing before a policy-maker’s eyes.
When advising business managers about liability policy, I’ve noticed that sometimes the managers overreact when they are confronted with areas of concern. They think in terms of profits. I think in terms of liability. Somewhere, in between, our worlds meet.
[Again, pure speculation, here] HD figures it is cheaper to give up that chainsaw then pay to train (and re-train and re-train and re-train) employees on proper loss-prevention procedure. Even for something as simple as “call the police.” On top of that, there’s the risk of someone getting hurt. So a manager decided it’s cheaper to give up the chainsaw. That is the corporate management’s decision to make–they’re the ones who are hired to take care of profits.
Yes, this attitude goes too far sometimes. Of course I don’t think this poor guy should have been fired simply for calling the police. But HD may be concerned that calling the police could escalate into a bigger problem–like negligence.
Home Depot action of firing employees stopping a crime, I just can’t believe! Until I read some of the postings here! Now I have a better understanding of our public thinking. Let someone else do it (the cops) Guess what? They can not do it alone even in a police state.
You all have lost your courage to do the right thing. This is one of many reasons crime does pay.
I have so much to say on this but feel I would get carried away! So let me say this, I wrote a letter to Home Depot advising the CEO I would be selling my stock and stopping my company from making about $10,000.00 in monthly purchases unless there policy changes to be more reasonable not only out of concern for liability reason but what is right. Good Luck!
@timmus: “Yeah, no kidding, I don’t understand what compels people to be heroes just to preserve company property. Let the videotape, loss prevention, and cops deal with it. The worse alternative is a bad work environment where employees are required to tackle shoplifters.”
How are you supposed to let the cops deal with it if you’re not allowed to call the cops?
The Gap has the same policy. One of my friends who was a Gap manager was fired for trying to stop a shoplifter. As a former Gap manager myself, it’s so frustrating when you see people blatantly shoplifting and there’s nothing you can do about it, besides smile and ask if they need help finding their size.
We’d have people return arm loads of items, without the receipt, and all different sizes… and then exchange those returned items for the items they wanted, in their right size.
Not only is it shoplifting, but it also wrecks havoc with the store’s inventory, meaning that sizes people want to buy, that the computer would think we had, weren’t there.
I have recently discovered that Victoria Secrets also has the same policy and will not allow their employees to question or detain a shoplifter.
While I find this practice totally ridiculous, I have to wonder what message these chains are sending to the public. It’s as though they are saying that it’s OK to shop there whether or not you intend to “pay” for your items or not.
Home Depot’s new motto:
“Shoplifting? You can do it. We can help.”