Walmart employees fired after disarming gunman.

[Hopyard]

Agreed, very much.



Yup. A pyrrhic victory at best. : |
Folk in these positions have to think on their feet and not get themself sucked into/trapped by the conditions...And by that allow their on morals & ethics (or tht of co-workers) to override employer policy & regs never mind their own horsesense (!).


Yup.
The world used to be this way, 30+ years ago.
But it ain't 1981 or '71 or '61 or '51....Anymore.
In the day it used to not be uncommon for store owners and staff to stop, frisk (!) and detain folk for all manner of everything on 'store property' up to and including fully bogus accusations. Just like a 'police'.
They would hold up in court in those days too if even it was debated and not just an assigned per police and store owners/staff statement to be an 'open & shut' case.
Those days though are gone. Dead. Welcome to modern world reality; It's now the year 2011.
Today you put hands on a person, you better well be prepared to die either in court, or possibly right there on the store floor. Over what? Some insured low to no value nothing, that on 'Black Friday' sold for less than a tank of gas.
Corps/employers, and their insurers as well as investors, to the most part know this and they aren't stupid people.
They are not stuck in a time warp past by mentality, nor can they afford to be so.
Employees such as these four would do well to update their programming as we no longer live in a time space of 'Happy Days' nor even 'Cagney & Lacey' and 'Magnum P.I.'...Whether such type 'loss prevention' employee career folk like it or not; Regardless of what a given states laws might be and allow.

I feel bad that four men, possibly family men, lost their livelihood as related to a dirt bag thief.
But at the end of the day they made active and immediate choices that jammed themself up, as contrary to their employers policies.

- Janq

Janq, just wanted to put up another bunch of ++++++++++++++

Especially this comment deserves attention:

"Today you put hands on a person, you better well be prepared to die either in court, or possibly right there on the store floor."

[DefensiveCarry.com]

[Hopyard]

This whole thing is an example where "survival mode" and "policy manual" are in conflict with each other.

Not really. Survival mode would have dictated NOT taking the guy to a back room. Keep it all out front where there are witnesses to everything and everything is video taped. Guy gets away, too bad. The police will look at the video and in a matter of hours if not minutes he'll be identified and caught. OR, he'll come back, get recognized and arrested by real police with real authority.

[Janq]

Bingo. ^^

The LP employee (singular) personal choice to use poor tactics to start (at the store floor) was the catalyst for what then and _later_ ultimately resulted in their being jammed up in a box (small room) and by that _secondarily_ finding themselves in a fight for survival.

There is no ending without a beginning. We _do not_ live in a vacuum.
Choose your own adventure.

For those folk who do not understand the concept and realities of spatial relationships as related to combat (a fight), below is a very well known clip demonstrating very simply same as was featured in the Hollyweird movie; Ronin (1998).

"I ambushed you with a cup of coffee."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w1MkjmbdHUM

This Wal-Mart event is the sort of life experience lesson that one only need suffer once, if they survive it, to learn from.
Ask any K-12 kid who's ever been jumped in a locker room or 'contained' in a bathroom.
Further contrary to common assumption numbers mean little when working with a determined adversary. Ask any person who has jail/prison guard or real & actual police experience.

- Pitfall Harry

"Horse sense: Noun 1. horse sense - sound practical judgment." - http://www.thefreedictionary.com/horse+sense

[patrol]

These folks did the right thing. The policy is flawed because it basically says you are supposed to allow people to shoplift and only stop the one's who are not armed as if you know until it's way too late. Once you commit to acting as they did you have to follow it through or risk injury or death to you and other's. As a Police Officer I know this all too well and that is what people don't get when they see a Cop fighting a resistant party into handcuff's is that you have to meet force with greater force or risk injury or death not force at the same level. It's like being attacked by a Great White shark when you are swimming along and peace nicks preaching to you that you should have never provoked the shark by swimming.
It is a unreasonable to risk your life over property but that is not what happened in this case. These folks had no choice. This guy actually told them of his intention's as well when he said "don't make me do this" Instead of being fired they should be promoted to regional managers and the Police Chief of that town should give them awards. I will send a link of this story to FOX NEWS and see if they can help these folks out.

[patrol]

This whole thing is an example where "survival mode" and "policy manual" are in conflict with each other.

my entire paragraph is not as good as your response, thank you, you pretty much hit the nail on the head and it's exactly what I was trying to articulate....

[ppkheat]

Keep it all out front where there are witnesses to everything and everything is video taped. Guy gets away, too bad. The police will look at the video and in a matter of hours if not minutes he'll be identified and caught.

Here's a WM example of being in front of witnesses and cameras and it didn't work out very well.

http://www.wafb.com/Global/story.asp...type=printable

[luvmy40]

Not really. Survival mode would have dictated NOT taking the guy to a back room. Keep it all out front where there are witnesses to everything and everything is video taped. Guy gets away, too bad. The police will look at the video and in a matter of hours if not minutes he'll be identified and caught. OR, he'll come back, get recognized and arrested by real police with real authority.

Except for the fact that at least one of the LP employees would probably have been fired for letting the BG walk out with the laptop...

I have to say that normally I agree with everything Janq has to say, this time I think he is off base. And while Hopyard may be a bit(ok a heck of a lot) more liberal than I am, I can usually see where he is coming from even if I don't agree with him 100%.

Three of the employees were specifically hired and payed for "Loss Prevention". One followed company policy and detained a suspected shoplifter with minimum force. Who(the BG) then threatened the life of one employee with a gun to his back. Could you, would you watch this happen when you had the means to intervene? Forget the employee who was threatened. Would you have felt justified in letting an agitated, armed criminal walk through the store populated by unsuspecting people to meet the PoPo at the front door?

Did they go against corporate policy? Only once their lives had been threatened! Walmart needs to nut up and admit that their policy is one dimensional and allow for the fact that good and loyal employees sometimes have to think for themselves and do what needs to be done.

[CowboyColby]

Janq I see and understand your many points however i'm assuming Wal-marts policy is to detain and escort a suspected theif to a secondary location away from customers i'm assuming for the safety of the customers and to avoid a scene. Also this detainment only is supposed to occur if the suspected theif complies, if they turn and run its my understanding LP is supposed to let them go and call the police.

Thus far the employees are following said policy. Now they have the suspect in a 2nd location away from customers and determine said suspect has in fact stolen a lap top. Now I'm assuming since the suspect has admitted to taking the property with no intentions of paying for it policy is to call the police to come and arrest the theif while being detained by the LP away from customers for customer safety.

Everything is going according to policy until the now proven theif presents a deadly weapon and threatens LP and management how should the employees handle this situation according to policy and come out alive? What would you recommend they do?

I think they handled the situation quite well with a great outcome up until they are fired. I agree it would be easier not to confront any suspected theif and just call the police with a description and provide video of the perp. However that is not wal marts policy they hire LP to minimize stolen property and handle the DVD theives on their own as 99% of their encounters are not violent or we would here much more about these occurances.

I'm not a Wal-Mart fan but I am a fan of people doing there job and for sure having jobs not sponging off the rest of hard working Americans. If I were in their situation I would hope I'd have handled it the same way regardless of policy my life is more important.

If this situation would have occured in the parking lot where a gunmen walks up to a CC'er i'm guessing the gunmen would be shot and no charges filed against the CC'er for acting in self defense as these emplyees did.

[mkphillips]

It's against policy? It's a crime to steal and use a gun in the said crime also. This person came to steal while armed! I can only assume that he was armed with the intent to use the gun. I don't care that he said let me go and nothing will happen (even with a pretty please), I can only assume he is going to use it, so I will do everything in my power to make sure he dosen't take me out. Be it shot, stab, kick, spit, and etc. and the hell with company policy. Fire me if you want, but I will protect MYSELF. Pfff, on Walmart! I don't shop there and never will. Beside who in heck is going to worry or think about company policy when that gun came into play?

[KralBlbec]

Janq I see and understand your many points however i'm assuming Wal-marts policy is to detain and escort a suspected theif to a secondary location away from customers i'm assuming for the safety of the customers and to avoid a scene. Also this detainment only is supposed to occur if the suspected theif complies, if they turn and run its my understanding LP is supposed to let them go and call the police.

Thats exactly it. Asking him to follow is one thing, and if he does complies all the better. Take him to the back and wait for the cops to show up. That's standard procedure. If he punches you in the face at the door and runs, can't do anything about it. Had he pulled the gun at the door, he probably would have run for it and nobody would have lost their job.

As for a "small room", that is entirely subjective. Every room is going to seem smaller when someone is waving a gun at you. I'd consider a 50x50ft room to be small if there isn't any cover from a gunman.

Confronting him in the store after watching him put it in his coat, that is against policy (at least it was when I was LP). We could annoy them by hanging around, pretending to fix shelves, asking if they need help and the like, but it was against policy to acknowledge that they have hidden merchandise. Supposedly they might have a guilty conscious with you hanging around and stash it somewhere, or end up paying for it. Confronting them supposedly risked a confrontation in the middle of the store where they have no escape. That was to be done at the door so they could run if they wanted, because we couldn't physically touch them.

You can reference all the news reports of botched shoplifting you want, but the common factors in all of them is that they were both botched and reported. You never hear about the dozens of routine detentions that happen every day in LP.

[KralBlbec]

Its also worth noting that the assistant manager who came in had 12 years experience, and the LP manager had 7. Reasoning that they had been fired for bring him to the back room to begin with would require the following assumptions:

A)They had never caught a single shoplifter in their career and thus never came in contact with the policy. This seems highly unlikely.
OR
B) The policy against bring a shoplifter to the back room is severe enough that a single infraction is immediate dismissal.
AND
C)They had never brought a shoplifter to that room before.
AND
D) They arbitrarily decided to bring this one shoplifter there, knowing it was in violation of policy and inconsistent with their previously unblemished record.
AND
E) This one shoplifter randomly happens to be the one who would draw a gun.

B-D are possible, but unlikely. E in combination with D is extremely unlikely.

[ppkheat]

You can reference all the news reports of botched shoplifting you want, but the common factors in all of them is that they were both botched and reported. You never hear about the dozens of routine detentions that happen every day in LP.

True enough, and I agree.

The story I referenced was an example that it can go botched inside a back room, or in the middle of the store. Certainly they should use SA and stack the odds in the LP's favor.

When I speak of survival mode (and what these LP guys did when a gun appeared), I'm talking about that millisecond reaction that your normal instinct says to immediately do, will often override what you remember reading in the policy handbook.

The law may say to use your turn signal when changing lanes, but faced with an imminent car crash one probably won't think about using their turn signal when swerving.

[JOHNSMITH]

I've seen WM LP/security quite literally pick up and drag a screaming, violent individual from the pharmacy, across the store, and out the front. So I don't think the hands on issue by itself is the issue here.

[Hopyard]

Here's a WM example of being in front of witnesses and cameras and it didn't work out very well.

http://www.wafb.com/Global/story.asp...type=printable

It would not have worked out well no matter what with this particular individual.

Here is a part of the story which concerns me: " Lt. Vickie Wax and a Wal-Mart security officer questioned Williams about a suspected shoplifting. A source close to the investigation tells 9 News that Williams was stealing disposable cameras, after he purchased more than $40 worth of merchandise. Police say when Wax tried to handcuff Williams, he punched her in the face, which knocked her to the floor."

I'm all for women having full rights and opportunity, but .... I think it might well have gone very differently had that been a guy trying to put the cuffs on him.

[Hopyard]

I've seen WM LP/security quite literally pick up and drag a screaming, violent individual from the pharmacy, across the store, and out the front. So I don't think the hands on issue by itself is the issue here.

Once anyone, LP or not, goes hands on there is a high risk of a variety of criminal and civil allegations and as Janq said, (paraphrased) you may die in court. The hands on part belongs to sworn peace officers.