Three employees at a Louisiana sporting goods store say they were fired for chasing an alleged gun thief out of the store in an alleged robbery earlier this month.
A sales associate at the Academy Sports and Outdoors store in Metairie, Los Angeles, believed they were completing a sale on a handgun on the night of December 16, when the customer suddenly ran away after being handed the 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 way to help the police.”
Sutton says two store employees joined her in the unsuccessful pursuit of the robber.
Sutton claimed the sporting goods store’s firearms compliance staff fired the three employees for violating store policy four days after the incident.
“Because we ran out of the building, even though the other associate and I stayed on the sidewalk, he fell under [that] We came off the front porch, as they call it,” Sutton explained.
Michelle Sutton was working as a team leader at Academy Sports and Outdoors the night of Dec. 16 when she received a call over the radio about an alleged robbery. WGNO
The store’s anti-theft policy prohibits associates from chasing fleeing suspects, while managers are allowed to stop those leaving the store by asking them to return to the building at a “non-threatening distance,” according to the outlet.
Sutton criticized the store for not giving clearer instructions on how to obtain details of the suspect to report to authorities.
“There is no clarification on how to get (the suspect’s) location to police,” Sutton told the outlet. “I know my store manager had said they wanted you to be able to get the make and model of a vehicle, you know, maybe the direction the vehicle was headed.”
“Every store that sells firearms, especially concealable handguns, should have a clear policy,” Sutton added. “They need to have additional training. “They need to prepare for the unexpected.”
The store’s firearms compliance staff fired the three employees who pursued the robber because they violated store policies. WGNO Sutton criticized the Academy for not giving clearer instructions on how to deal with theft 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, predominantly in the South, Southeast and Midwest, and has its corporate offices in Katy, Texas, a suburb of Houston.
The store sells hunting, fishing and camping items, as well as “sports and leisure products.”
Metairie is the largest community in Jefferson Parish and is located directly northwest of New Orleans, south of Lake Pontchartrain.
Academy Sports and Outdoors has 282 locations, predominantly in the South, Southeast and Midwest, and has its corporate offices in Katy, Texas, a suburb of Houston. WGNO
In July, a Colorado grocery store employee was fired after recording three shoplifters stealing about a value of laundry detergent on Father’s Day.
King Soopers employee Santino Burrola was alerted to a possible robbery in progress and was told by the person in charge of the store to take a photo of the license plate and immediately ran out of the store following the three men.
A day later, Burrola was told he had been suspended, and a week later the store terminated his employment.
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Source: vtt.edu.vn