Another good reason to avoid Wal-Mart?
Last week, four Wal-Mart employees were fired for potentially saving lives.
Long-time employees of Wal-Mart’s Layton, Utah, store had apprehended a suspected shop lifter. After taking him to an office and relieving him of his swag, he became aggressive upon hearing the police were coming for him. He pulled out a handgun and threatened them if they didn’t let him go.
They responded reasonably by using physical force to restrain and disarm him, potentially saving not only their own lives but the lives of innocent shoppers. Even the police reported that they acted appropriately, considering the suspect was armed and threatening to shoot.
Wal-Mart corporate was only concerned that the employees violated company policy by not disengaging and retreating. (Can anybody run faster than a speeding bullet?)
Apparently, Wal-Mart expects employees to die in order to uphold company policy.
(Good video coverage on tap, too.)
That’s disgusting.
Corporations being creations of the government, we should look at holding corporations liable for bad outcomes to their policies as they infringe on basic human rights. It would be proper for such policies to become dead letters, and unenforceable.
Sam’s dead, and it seems that the further removed Wal-Mart is from the era of his leadership, the more boneheaded they become.
Well, I’d like to blame Walmart but really it’s the lawyers, of which quite a few reside around here. The lawyers at the insurance company who decided that they should charge massive rates if Walmart didn’t have the policy. The lawyers that argue since Walmart didn’t enforce the policy by firing employees the action was de facto company policy and Walmart was responsible for injuries to the criminal, to the employees and anyone else in the county. The lawyers who will sue on the part of the criminal. The lawyers who would sue on the part of people injured by this “citizen’s arrest” when obviously if they’d just let him go no one would have been hurt. The lawyers who will sue on the behalf of the employees if they’d been beaten to a pulp or now faced criminal battery or unlawful detainment or kidnapping charges. And that supposes that the jurisdiction has reasonable self defense and “citizen arrest” laws. Oh and in my state, by law, private citizens may not use deadly force to stop someone from fleeing, so had he gotten away, and an employee had used deadly force that couldn’t be shown to be in legitimate self-defense, the employee would be facing murder charges.
So tell me how Walmart’s policy is bad when you have that array against you. They probably would like to no fire the employees but the insurance company won’t allow it and some lawyer will argue that their retention negates the policy against taking action.
So really, it’s just another reason to punch a lawyer in the face but you can’t do that cause they’ll sue.
Indeed. Just another facet of our overly litigious society.
“It would be proper for such policies to become dead letters, and unenforceable.”
Speaking for myself, I think the state of affairs you describe should change.
Central planning dehumanizes society. Walmart is not evil but it’s impossible not to run a company so vast without the center losing touch with the fringes of the operation. Company policy in this case should be to follow the best judgment of the local manager. If the shoplifter is left alone and someone calls 911, most likely he would have been shot and killed by some SWAT sharpshooter or overzealous policeman. Remember the case of Erik Scott shot for no reason at the Las Vegas Costco (and he was not even committing a crime.) The criminal at Walmart should be grateful for the way the employees handled the situation.
Something similar happened at a Best Buy–an employee chased down a shoplifter, and he was fired for his trouble.
Not accosting thieves is a practical policy, but it shouldn’t be an ironclad rule. Every situation is different.
Chasing down a fleeing perp is different than this incident. The gunman had to go through 3 people at the office door to escape. They were directly in his line of fire.
Most self-defense law allows force only until the threat of physical injury or death is over. When the perp flees, the threat is over. Risky idea to use force in that case (some exceptions apply).
“Wal-Mart corporate was only concerned that the employees violated company policy by not disengaging and retreating…
Apparently, Wal-Mart expects employees to die in order to uphold company policy.”
If one employee was present and resisted, then Wal-Mart was right. But there were FOUR working together.
On the other hand, if anyone was hurt, Wal-Mart would be sued for its employees’ actions. Wal-Mart has a very deep pocket. If one could sue MickyD for a cup of hot coffee, one could sue Wal-Mart for whatever.
On the third hand, if there were a shoot-out, with or without employees’ participations, Wal-Mart would be sued.
On the fourth hand, the shop lifter was a peaceable chap, he never flashed his gun before he was cornered. He might have lifted a few Wal-Mart items, the cost of which was part of the cost of doing business. Ergo, Wal-Mart’s employees need to follow its policy.
Wal-Mart, however, should explain its policy to its employees, and let the four go with a reprimand this time. Its employees should refer any suspicious characters to security or management, a reward given to the employee if a shop lifter was caught. Otherwise, Wal-Mart will become a shoplifter haven, no?
He might have lifted a few Wal-Mart items, the cost of which was part of the cost of doing business.
Sure, and you can tell the attractive ladies in the class that an occasional grope or attempted rape is part of the cost of being attractive.
“the attractive ladies in the class that an occasional grope or attempted rape is part of the cost of being attractive”
You can’t tell the difference, can you?
Wal-mart’s policy of treating occasional shop-lifting as part of the cost of doing business is Wal-Mart’s decision; your groping and raping is not the ladies’ decision. Got it? Wal-mart settles for a lesser evil, the ladies do not. If a lady agrees to have sex with you, there is no crime; if you force yourself on the lady, that is rape. It all depends on who is making the decision. Understand?
When criminals are allowed to get away with crime they will commit more crime. It’s a fact as plain as day to anyone except the willfully blind.
When the perp pulled the gun his rights were forfeit. He was a criminal employing a weapon in the pursuit of his criminal goal. He was not wrongfully accused. He wasn’t a misunderstood minority. He was a bad person behaving badly.
The only cure for that is sudden and swift and to the point violence. Anything less and the guy learns that pulling a gun, and maybe using it, is a way to get out of trouble.
Do we really want a society that is training the criminals to use violence to avoid capture? That’s how you get a Washington, D.C. or a Chicago or Los Angeles level of crime.
The fact the the perp was armed is the reason for the policy.
What would you write if Wal-Mart’s policy was that its employees were required to physically detain shoplifters and it got them killed?
I’m not sure firing them is necessary, though. I doubt they’d ever do something like that again.
Four UNARMED, UNTRAINED people physically restrained a criminal with a gun. In almost all cases, all the criminal wants is to get away. Since he didn’t open fire, that’s most likely the case here. If they had just let him go, he would have fled. Instead, they risked their lives, and possibly those of bystanders, to control him. The company policy to let violent offenders go, and place safety first was ignored. They deserved to be fired. That kind of bad judgment shouldn’t be tolerated in places where so many people are gathered.
It was Wal-Mart policy? Then the local manager, whoever he/she/it was, was following a zero-tolerance approach, also known as a zero-brain approach.
If an employee of your risks his or her life while on duty, right or wrong, good or bad, the LEAST you can do for them is to investigate the incident on its merits, not according to a policy in a dusty book on somebody’s shelf.
If the manager had had guts, as much as the employees in question had, they would have been privately admonished and publicly praised. Privately admonished, because company policy apparently demands it… and publicly praised because it’s the right thing to do. Think about it — what consequences can we expect here?
Case #1: Had the employees let the gun-brandishing shoplifter go — assuming he didn’t shoot them on the way out anyway — then, as others here have pointed out, future Wal-Mart shoplifters would know that brandishing a gun, or APPEARING to do so, is a fine way to get away with anything. That’s great business, and great for the community besides.
Case #2: Had the employees kept their jobs, and received some sort of public recognition for their bravery, then future shoplifters would know that it could happen again — because even if those particular employees aren’t on duty today, they no doubt inspired other employees. Don’t shoplift at Wal-Mart… and if you do and get caught, don’t brandish a gun, because they clearly don’t like it there.
Case #3: With these four employees fired for their actions, Wal-Mart employees are discouraged from ever trying such a thing again… meaning that future shoplifters can expect to be left alone, out of fear for their jobs among other things. The same consequence as Case #1, in other words.
In short, with these four employees fired for their actions, THEY DID IT FOR NOTHING.
I hope an angry public forces Wal-Mart to offer them their jobs back… and that they refuse. They deserve far better than what Wal-Mart is able to offer them.
respectfully,
Daniel in Brookline
Walmart’s policy is prudent, but the company acted stupidly in this case. Has it occurred to them that they have now encouraged armed robbers to invade their stores, without concern for consequences?
Now if an armed robber holds up a customer, who then pulls out a Glock in legitimate self-defense and holes the perp, incidentally shooting a bystander, it seems to me that Walmart could be liable for attracting predators to attack innocent citizens on its premises.
Holy Shishkabob!