Was his firing another step in the wussification of America?

"The manager counseled with the suspect, telling him he could stop using drugs and change his life."

Sounds like he got all preachy on him. Find Jesus, all that crap. I can understand why Home Depot wouldn't wanna be associated with Fundamentalist Born Again Zealots.

But if that's not the case, then this is ridiculous.

Home Depot didn't fire him for stopping the thief from robbing the vending machine, they fired him for chasing down and detaining the suspect. At that point, the employees weren't in danger, cause the guy was fleeing the scene. And Home Depot did this because they are afraid of getting sued for illegally detaining a suspect. Remember, the shoplifter has the same rights as the customers who refuse to show their receipt upon leaving the store.

I would give him double what he's asking. that's crazy that they fired him. I would also rule in favor of ANY employee that chases and drags down a shoplifter as I would to any employee assaulted by a customer because they didn't want to show their receipt. There's something seriously wrong with America that a person can do the right thing and get fired for it. we're starting to let the patients run the asylum if we continue to let these things happen.

Not to start an argument, but those policies are in place for a reason.

Home Depot simply doesn't want to be liable for every employee who decides to play Clark Kent and take out supposed criminals. I somewhat understand that.

its all about liability. Companies should just sit down and figure this type of thing out. There almost seems to be no precedent on it with how many times its going on.

Just wait till someone dies because someone else feared for their job. I'll bet it becomes federal law within 30 days..

@bravo369: Would you also gladly shell out the money, attorney fees, and other costs associated with a lawsuit when said employee injures him/her self when chasing down the shoplifter?

You know just as well as I do, if he broke a leg, an arm, or worse when chasing down the perp he'd have sued Home Depot in a heartbeat for not protecting his best interests in an unsafe working environment.

Brilliant!!!!

I don't see how he can say he feared for his employees safety when he had to CHASE the guy down. If someone is running away, in reality you probable don't have to fear them anymore.

When I worked in retail, I was told many time to not chase a crook. We even joked that we would help a crook carry out the cash register to their car if they asked. Putting your own safety at risk is even a bigger risk for the store.

Those are simply policies all stores have - and I'm sure Home Depot has the same. Chances are this person never read the handbooks like he was suppose to. A company would rather a crook get away with some merchandise or money then see an employee hurt.

If this person did not know this, then it is common sense to fire the person. If they can not follow simply rules, then you have to let the person go.

What is next - Someone's mother is sick, so they take $3,000 out of the register - THEN sue the company when they fire them for helping their mother?

He was fired because he broke the rules. Simple enough.

No good deed ever goes unpunished.

Devil's Advocate: if the person who demonstrated violence (crowbar) in committing a crime isn't stopped and arrested, what's to stop him from coming back with a glock?

This manager put the company at risk in a liability lawsuit once he ran after the suspect. Once the suspect ran away, he was no longer threatening his staff and it was the police's responsibility to find him. My husband has been punched in the face by a thief who was still IN his store. The store's responsibilities end when the issue leaves their premises, but since the gentleman was on the clock, he put the company at risk with his actions.

Most companies have an established policy for loss prevention in their handbooks. The managers are responsible for knowing it. Most that I know of say to never chase or detain a suspected thief and to let the police handle it.

When was the police called in this case? They should have been as soon as the cashier noticed the guy going at the machine with the crowbar.

@KenSPT: that's where my support of him would end. he should be allowed to take upon personal responsibility if he decides to chase down a shoplifter. If i was walking down the street and saw a robbery/pursesnatching and I chased the guy for 3 blocks, tackled him and broke my leg in the process, i would only have myself to blame for that.

After going through basic corporate retail training I can say the main reason they have these policies is so employees don't try to detain or deter armed robbers that could put their lives in jeopardy. The company would rather lose the 300 bucks cash/goods to the robber than face a wrongful death suite because an employee got shot trying to refuse cash to a gunman.

That said he shouldn't have been fired, just retrained on policy.

@B: Except in this case they actually had cause to detain him, unlike receipt checkers.

@dorkins: Was his firing another step in the wussification of America?

It would certainly appear that way. On the other hand, just go grab whatever you want from HD...no one at the store is allowed to stop you.

This would seem to be further proof that corporations, or more correctly, those who run them, are idiots.

I can't blame him for dreaming of a Nardelli severance package, but something tells me contingency fees are involved.

@bravo369: Sadly we live in a world where people don't take personal responsibility for anything.

Seems like they would have been much better served by just taking the guy aside and quietly telling him not to do that anymore. As it is, now they're facing a lawsuit AND it's broadcast all over the world that Home Depot isn't going to try too hard to stop shoplifters.

Silly Home Depot Employee! Don't you know that when seconds count, the police are only minutes away??

I hope he wins.

@unklegwar: Jump to conclusions much?

@BuddyGuyMontag: I was going to say the same thing. Turning your back on or ignoring someone who has done something violent is a very foolish thing to do. I don't like "preachy zealots" either but this guy obviously has a good sense of morals and seemed to be genuinely acting out of a sense of trying to protect those around him.

@coan_net: I don't see how he can say he feared for his employees safety when he had to CHASE the guy down. If someone is running away, in reality you probably don't have to fear them anymore.

Tell that to the LAPD.

I think they should have let him just get away and have a chance to return with better weaponry, to finish the job, get revenge, and/or dispose of witnesses.

@Aladdyn: yeah, but he might have been saying nasty words like "God" or (gasp) "JESUS" to the robber ... the horror ...

Better to let him find another victim, right?

@dorkins: Because he can't do that anyway. Someone willing to return with a better weapon, to kill (under camera surveillance none the less) would not be deterred by arrest. Hell, if that "might" happen, why didn't he go and robbed the cashier at gunpoint? Petty thieves stick to petty crimes.

@dorkins: Or, here's an idea: maybe they should have let law enforcement do their job. You see, there are these people, they're called "police." Society pays them to track down and catch criminals. Home Depot? Their employees aren't paid to do that -- they are employed to deter shoplifting and sell home improvement goods. That's it.

I understand you would like to live in an awesome manly world where everyone was packing and people would throw down at a moment's notice. Perhaps it would be like a bitchin' action movie. The rest of us, however, live in the real world. It's a world where employees who blow out their knees tackling shoplifters in the parking lot sue their employer for not having a safer environment, or worse yet, a world where some deranged wacko pulls out a gun in the store and blows little Sally Lou Who's brains all over the juniors department because some macho "security team agent" grabs them before they can make off with a $29.99 dustbuster.

Grow up, and realize that stores are more concerned about actually protecting people than they are about "wussification."

Your comments are consistently ignorant and misguided. I'm sorry to be rude, but please at least pretend to think about things before you post.

@bravo369:
AGREED wholeheartedly.

It's ludicrous, really. Stop the good customers and ask for ID, let the bad ones go that refuse. So, let the dubious get away with it, and punish the good ones (higher prices to pay for the shoplifting we refused to stop, firing people for being upstanding citizens....)

What happened to America whilst I was sleeping, huh?

@cde: "Petty thieves" sometimes graduate to bigger and more heinous crimes.

@cde: I assume you mean CAN do that anyway. I think it would be much more likely for things to get escalated at that moment of time. Once hes arrested the situation would change for him and he is more likely to move on to other crimes.

@dorkins: "Was his firing another step in the wussification of America"?

Man do I agree, what happened to the good-ol days when you'd give this guy a good ass-wooping and the cops would come and bash his head a few times? Boy, times were a lot simpler 25 years ago and we had a lot less crime too.

@cde: "Someone willing to return with a better weapon, to kill (under camera surveillance none the less) would not be deterred by arrest."

You seem to be assuming he won't be in jail long (or at all) ... a sad commentary on our justice system.

@Beerad: The point i was trying to make though before is that it seems in this case the guy wasnt trying to be the hero. He wasnt trying to be tough. He had a real concern for the safety of the other employees, and apparently concern for the criminals life as well. Maybe he shouldnt have forcibly stopped him, but he certainly shold have been allowed to follow the guy and make sure he wasnt getting a more lethal weapon.

@Beerad: Police are only there to clean up after the fact.

I would have fired him too, especially since he was a manager. You do not want somebody in a supervisory position somehow getting it into the employee's heads that it is EVER a good idea to chase down shoplifters. It is dangerous to the employee, opens up the store to liability suits from all sides, and is just bad policy. As a manager of some sort, he should have known that...

If the guy was fleeing the premises, there is no reason to chase him.

SirWired

Civic Duty.

Citizens are by law, required to make an effort to stop crime, are they not?

Did the Gov'ment change this?

I have worked at Home Depot. When you are hired, it is disclosed up front that you will be fired if you attempt to detain/chase a shoplifter. He knew the rules.

That policy is in place to prevent liability on Home Depot's part. What if they had fallen with the suspect and injured him? Lawsuit on Home Depot. What if the suspect had hit the manager with the crowbar? Lawsuit on Home Depot.

He knew the rules, and as a manager, it would have been his job to fire any employee of that store if they did what he did.

@TheBigLewinski: "Man do I agree, what happened to the good-ol days when you'd give this guy a good ass-wooping and the cops would come and bash his head a few times? Boy, times were a lot simpler 25 years ago and we had a lot less crime too."

Yeah, today's system is much better: a get-out-of-jail-after-you've-bulked-up-and- made-more-criminal-contacts card, and go bash in some victims' heads a few times. Advice: do it in a gun-free zone, like a mall.

So fine, he broke the guidelines established by Home Depot to deal with this kind of situation. Why is it necessary to summarily fire him? Why not suspend or reprimand?

@CharlieSeattle: Receipt no-showers are suspected of a crime, just like he was. Until conviction, he's an alleged thief.

@sirwired: Yeah, let him go bother someone else! Good thing Home Depot knows that these people won't go rape or kill someone later; we can all sleep easy.

I understand Home Depot's intent, but it just seems so wrong ... we're creating crime-friendly zones all over.

@Aladdyn: I agree, this guy does seem to be a genuinely good guy who wanted to do the right thing. (Draw your own conclusions, however, as to how great a guy he is if he thinks he should recover $7.5M for losing his job as a retail manager. Oh, plus an additional $600k for his wife?! That's right, the C-ist article doesn't mention that, but read the link.)

That being said, most stores do allow employees to take down car information, etc. to help the police catch the guy. If you want to follow a thief into the parking lot and watch him, that's usually okay. But that's not what happened here.

And FWIW, I doubt that a guy who discarded a crowbar as he was running away was headed for a "weapon upgrade."

@DrGirlfriend: Because once he starts going after people who break the law, what's to stop him from going after Home Depot? :D

Citizens are by law, required to make an effort to stop crime, are they not?

@DikembeMeiztombo: No. What law are you talking about?

You're not legally obligated to try to stop someone you see breaking into a car. That's why we have police: people who are armed and trained to stop crime.

@Beerad: "I doubt that a guy who discarded a crowbar as he was running away was headed for a "weapon upgrade."

Crowbars are heavy. And have a short range. That's why I stopped using them.

@B: The report says he hurried away with the money, now unless they were standing on the edge of a field when he hurried away you can't assume the employees or even customers were no longer in danger. Most likely he would have had to run into or through the parking lot. So what about employees that might have been helping customers to their cars, or gathering carts, nevermind the customers in the parking lot. It could be assumed he was fleeing the scene and that was the end of it. It could just as easily be assumed that he could have hurt any customers or employees in the parking lot. So then instead of getting fired for detaining a suspect, he gets fired cause HomeDepot gets sued when the suspect assualts a customer as he's getting away.

@Rectilinear Propagation: Police don't care if your car gets broken into. They won't even collect evidence. But don't you dare share music...

@B: Except that he there were eyewitness accounts of him vandalizing and stealing. Whereas as a shopper hasnt done anything illegal.

I wish my neighbors had this policy when we used to play ding-dong ditch.