Three Louisiana sporting goods store employees claim they were fired for chasing a suspected gun thief out of the store in a shoplifting incident earlier this month.
A sales associate at the Academy Sports and Outdoors store in Metairie, LA believed they were closing a sale with a gun on the evening of Dec. 16, when a customer suddenly fled after being handed a firearm.
“I just took off,” Michelle Sutton, one of the team leaders, told WGNO after hearing the call on her radio. “I knew I needed some form of way to help the police.”
Sutton said two shop associates joined him in a botched pursuit of the shoplifter.
Sutton claims the sporting goods store’s firearms compliance staff fired the three employees for violating the store’s policy four days after the incident.
“Because we ran out of buildings, even though I and other associates lived on the sidewalk, it fell below [that] we left the front porch, as they call it,” explained Sutton.
Michelle Sutton was working as a team leader at Academy Sports and Outdoors on the night of Dec. 16 when she got a call on her radio about a suspected shoplifting incident. WGNO
The store’s anti-theft policy prohibits associates from chasing fleeing suspects while managers are allowed to detain those leaving the store by asking them to return to the building at a “non-threatening distance,” according to the store.
Sutton slammed the store for not providing clearer instructions on how to obtain suspect details to report to law enforcement.
“There is no explanation for getting the (suspect’s) location for the police,” Sutton told the outlet. “I know my store director has said that they want you to be able to get the make and model of the vehicle, you know, maybe the direction the vehicle is going.”
“Every store that sells firearms, especially handguns that can be concealed, needs to have a clear policy,” Sutton added. “They need to have additional training. They have to be prepared for the unexpected.”
The store’s firearms compliance staff terminated three employees who chased down the store’s robbers, because they violated store policy. WGNO Sutton blasted the Academy for not providing clearer instructions on dealing with shoplifting incidents and hopes the store can fix it so other employees aren’t punished in the same way. WGNO
Academy Sports and Outdoors has 282 locations, mostly in the South, Southeast and Midwest, and has its corporate office in Katy, Texas, a suburb of Houston.
The store sells hunting, fishing and camping equipment, along with “sporting and leisure products.”
Metairie is the largest community in Jefferson Parish and is located directly Northwest of New Orleans, just south of Lake Pontchartrain.
Academy Sports and Outdoors has 282 locations, mostly in the South, Southeast and Midwest, and has its corporate office in Katy, Texas, a suburb of Houston. WGNO
In July, a Colorado grocery store employee was fired after he recorded three shoplifters stealing laundry detergent worth around Father’s Day.
King Soopers employee Santino Burrola was alerted to the possible shoplifting and was told by the person in charge of the store to get a photo of the license plate and immediately ran out of the store after the three men.
A day later Burrola was told he was suspended, and a week later the store terminated his employment.
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Source: thtrangdai.edu.vn/en/
