4 Wal Mart employees fired, what would YOU have done?

[Bonesinium]

"Hey, I'm not going to hurt you, just come with me. It's okay, I promise."

"Don't make me do this. Just let me leave, and it will be fine. I swear."

How many times is this the truth when being said by someone pointing a gun while also committing some other crime? Sure they could have just let him go. Maybe he runs off with the computer and all is fine. Or maybe he shoots the witnesses that saw him and runs off. Or maybe he runs off to rob another store. Or maybe he runs off and gets into a gun fight with cops.

There are a lot of things that could happen if they let him go. Only one of those things is good. They played the odds and won. Firing them for a split second decision in a potential life or death situation, where they were ALREADY in jeopardy is stupid. But hey, I would rather have gotten fired then killed, and the company that fires me can screw off.

Sam1911,

You are operating under the ASSUMPTION that this guy is just going to leave, as you ASSUME he was only there to steal a computer. When it comes to a CRIMINAL, who has a CRIMINAL past, I am not assuming a damn thing about his intentions, other then that they are bad.

Let's look at facts.

He had a criminal past.
He had an illegally obtained firearm.
He is committing a crime.
He is now is using said firearm in a crime.

So what really is more likely? Him not hurting anyone, or him hurting someone? I don't know. They didn't know. But if I am going to make any assumption, when he has 4 strikes against him and none for him, (even though they only knew 2 at the time, it really is moot) I am going to assume the worst. Why are you assuming he is now going to do the right thing when he has showed he will do the wrong thing. If you are assuming his motives because of what he said, you have far more faith in criminals not being a liar then me.

 

[Sam1911]

you have to either flee (if you can in safety) or fight with everything you have.

Do not try to make this a binary choice. The world is full of infinite options.

You may fight. You may flee. You may dance a jig and sing. You may do any of hundreds of things to avoid getting shot or tripping a potentially violent criminal's trigger.

You may, in fact, use your senses of observation and capacity for reason to see if there's a safest path out of this problem. There are no guarantees that ANY choice of action will prevent harm, but you can make reasonable choices that encompass a lot more than fight or flight.

I say, if a man has a gun against another's flesh, and you are unarmed (heck, even if armed), and he tells you, "I'm leaving now," LET HIM GO. Sometimes the simplest answer is best. The guy he doesn't shoot may thank you.

 

[Sam1911]

There are a lot of things that could happen if they let him go. Only one of those things is good.

But you cannot react with violence to prevent what he might do later. You can only react against the immediate threat. What he might do later would not justify an otherwise unlawful assault on someone, and it does not justify an unwise counter-attack that jeopardizes more people than it helps.

 

[Geckgo]

On a side note, if he wanted to kill someone, I believe he would not have hesitated long enough for his gun to be taken away by 4 unarmed people who would be running the other way had he opened fire.

 

[Maverick223]

How many times is this the truth when being said by someone pointing a gun while also committing some other crime?

I can guarantee that it is more likely than the alternative. We may not hear about it as much, nor see it in as many movies, but that is solely due to it being less entertaining, not a reflection of actual statistical evidence.

Most folks (even not-so-bright petty thieves) realize that killing someone is not a smart move, and would not only alert others to the happenings, but also result in a more intensive investigation by police and far greater prison time if caught. The chances of something going wrong with a counterattack is far greater than the chance that he would realize the aforementioned and simply try to get away (with or without the stolen merchandise) leaving everyone unharmed for fear of retaliation (either from bystanders or criminal proceedings). The people executing the counterattack just got really lucky in this instance (which provides further that the perpetrator had no intentions to shoot, otherwise it is probable that he would have fired when rushed).

 

[2WheelsGood]

I think the ONLY realistic thing to assume is that HE has no purpose whatsoever in killing that hostage!

At what point does that assumption change? When hot lead starts flying? Too late by then.

 

[Geckgo]

I can guarantee that it is more likely than the alternative. We may not hear about it as much, nor see it in as many movies, but that is solely due to it being less entertaining, not a reflection of actual statistical evidence.

I see it in movies all the time. John Dillinger saying "you can be a dead hero or a live coward." Completely honest.

Or a criminal that says, "I'm gonna kill you" and then does, or at least tries.

Most of the lies are when they are bluffing about taken rash action, at least in the movies

 

[Double Naught Spy]

If we had to wait for cops to make sure justice occurred, justice may not ever occur.

Holy crap. We do not dispense justice. We are not AGENTS of justice. Get JUSTICE out of your head right now. We may act ONLY in direct defense of life. Even the cops don't dispense JUSTICE.

What a way to ruin an argument.

Sorry you didn't like the word of "justice." I can see where there would be an issue. I meant in it regard to being just or fair, not a legal decistion or punishment.

Soooo.....

Okay, if we had to wait for cops to stop wrongdoers from doing wrong, the wrongdoers might never be stopped. The point being that an injustice can be stopped by people.

Talk about ruining an arguement. Just where are you that you may only act in defense of life? You state it like it is some sort of fact, but it isn't. You can't stop a person from ripping off your house, car, business unless they are threatening your life? You are in Pennsylvania, right? Yep, you can act other than in defense of life according to your state law. I would have mentioned Texas law, but everyone gets tired about hearing about Texas law. As with all state laws, there are conditions, but you can and may do it...such as for the protection of property, such as 18 Aa. Cons. Stat. section 507...use of force for the protection of property.

In parallel to your demands of me, I respectfully suggest you remove from your cerebral sphere the notion that we may only act in defense of life.

 

[Laf'n'Larry]

I'm a little confused about the implementation of the Walmart policy. I don't understand why the hostage, Gabriel Stewart was fired. By the time he was in position to assist his co-workers in holding the BG, the BG was already disarmed. It seems at that point he was following the policy of apply only enough force to maintain control of the BG.

Whatever, I regret not having the ability to hire all four of them.

 

[orionengnr]

I think they did just fine. In a dynamic situation with many variables, it is not really possible to predict all possible outcomes and have "a plan" in place for each one.

To "solve" that problem, Wal-Mart is using a cookie-cutter approach that sounds good to the Corporate lawyers but ignores reality. Much like "zero-tolerance" policies that are often worse than the "problems" they seek to solve.

None of us was in that room. In a situation like this, what really matters is not intentions, it is results. The results were about as close to perfect as one could ask for. Monday-morning quarterbacking, by W-M or by us, is idiotic.

I will be sending Wal-Mart Corporate an email, and probably a snail mail as well. Perhaps a number of people doing likewise might restore some sanity (or at least a review) to these policies. No guarantees, but nothing ventured, nothing gained. IMHO, these guys

To assume that a criminal with a firearm pointed at someone's back "just wants to escape" and doesn't plan on killing anyone is DEEPLY IDIOTIC. I cannot stress that enough. That is imminent and unlawful deadly force--PERIOD.

No sir. We know that he drew a firearm in the process of committing a crime, and took a hostage. He placed everyone within gunshot in imminent, unlawful deadly peril.

Two of the most poignant observations of the entire thread (and FWIW, I believe Cosmo has more than a passing acquaintance with the law). Criminal behavior is frequently irrational. To try to attribute rational thought processes to an irrational act is...irrational. At best.

Without putting too fine a point on it...Sam1911, you seem incredibly invested in this thread and in your position. How many posts have you made in this one thread? I didn't count, but it seems like it had to be 15 or better.

Edited to add...had to satisfy my curiosity. Went back and counted--you have 17 posts of a total of 85 in the tread. That means one of every five posts in this thread is yours. That strikes me as a bit unusual...and that's putting it mildly.

 

[s.ken]

Sounds like they literally backed this guy in the corner. Bad things usually happen after that, gun or no gun.

 

[Deltaboy1984]

When Mr Sam was alive they would get a raise and promotion. I miss Mr. Sam's WalMart!

 

[JellyJar]

Once the BG had the gun out they had no choice but to assume that he was going to use it, regardless of what the BG said. There was the very real possibility that one or more innocent persons were going to be killed or seriously injured.

The only question here is whether it was safer to act or not. They were there we weren't so we cannot judge either way.

Walmart needs to understand that policies cannot be counted on to cover every possible eventuality. Sometimes disobeying the rules is the only right thing to do. I believe that there exist a legal doctrine called the doctrine of competing harms...

( http://www.personaldefensesolutions.net/Article-JudiciousUse.htm )

that allows you to break the rules when obeying the rules would result in more harm.

Walmart should not have fired these employees for their actions because it seems to me that following the rules in this situation was probably more dangerous than not following the rules.

I hope that Utah employment laws give these employees a way of suing Walmart for unreasonable termination and that they do so to help protect other employees of all companies in similar situations.

 

[Sam1911]

I think the ONLY realistic thing to assume is that HE has no purpose whatsoever in killing that hostage!

At what point does that assumption change? When hot lead starts flying? Too late by then.

It may be. ANY information which comes later modifies your understanding of the situation. And this is a highly volatile situation. We're talking about balancing a delicate social conflict on the edge of a knife.

We've backed him into a corner. He draws a gun and demands to leave. He might shoot us all, this next second ... but he hasn't, and he's still talking his way out, not shooting his way out.

That's informative.

But he might still just start shooting -- after all, he MIGHT not be a rational criminal, or might be about to have a mental break which will unleash homicidal tendencies -- so maybe we should rush him and try to take the gun.

But if we do that, that act itself may push him over the edge. We don't know, yet. If he really isn't willing to shoot, maybe we'll be able to disarm him. Of course, if he really doesn't want to shoot, we don't actually NEED to risk it by trying to disarm him.

Maybe we can "gentle" him through this moment. Work him down from the edge of killing someone by appearing (at least) to comply and help him achieve his goal. Maybe he really wants to leave and we are more likely to all walk out of here alive if we don't force his hand, and we clear out of his way.

Every path is fraught with danger. Every path has pitfalls that could make it end badly. Every path has "dumb luck" possibilities (like what actually happened) which could make it all come out sunny side up.

Maybe there was something about the thief's mannerisms or the way he spoke that would have made every one of us (were we in that room) decide that the only prudent choice was immediate violent resistance. That's certainly possible, and given the story as presented, we can't know that.

Given the story as presented, I stand by my belief that the employees took a grave and unwise risk and their survival stood on the whims of chance.

 

[Sam1911]

Okay, if we had to wait for cops to stop wrongdoers from doing wrong, the wrongdoers might never be stopped. The point being that an injustice can be stopped by people.

Of course. But we are trying to debate what is the wisest course of action in the given scenario to keep anyone from dying there.

Bringing "justice" (by whatever definition you want to give it), or lawful use of force to defend property, into that debate is a red herring.

 

[gregj]

This is the bottom line for their firing. Suxs

Lundberg believes concern over liability drives these policies.

Cudos to the employees for doing the right thing. Hopefully they will find better employment soon.

 

[Sam1911]

To "solve" that problem, Wal-Mart is using a cookie-cutter approach that sounds good to the Corporate lawyers but ignores reality. Much like "zero-tolerance" policies that are often worse than the "problems" they seek to solve.

I thought we'd covered that. Walmart really doesn't have a choice here. By their own description, these employees very clearly violated the company policy which directly addressed THIS VERY situation. They cannot let precedent be rewritten by these actions, leading to employee deaths. Reread posts 16 and 49.

Monday-morning quarterbacking, by W-M or by us, is idiotic.

You seem to be surprised that I've written a lot, but you don't seem to have read most of it. Re-read post 28.

Criminal behavior is frequently irrational. To try to attribute rational thought processes to an irrational act is...irrational. At best.

This seems to be almost the crux of the debate. Criminal behavior is SOMETIMES irrational, but not frequently wholly irrational. Most criminals are NOT insane or devoid of sound reasoning ability. They may have a seriously skewed sense of morals, and might not be the very smartest of us, but to immediately assume that you cannot understand, or predict with reasonable accuracy, their actions is leading many down a very unfortunate road. And shutting them off from some of their best paths to survival.

My point is this: you CAN often use more than simply fight or flight to work through a dangerous social situation. You do NOT have to treat every problem as a nail, because you DO have more tools at your disposal than just a "hammer."

...

That means one of every five posts in this thread is yours. That strikes me as a bit unusual...and that's putting it mildly.

Awww, shucks, you must not have participated in many threads which I've found interesting enough to apply my faculties. When it appears to me that there is a larger lesson -- something to be mulled over, debated, countered, re-evaluated ... the 'dialectic process' if you will -- I will occasionally invest myself heavily in a thread like this, sure.

I think it's a worthy investment. I don't expect to change the minds of those who see this as a one-dimensional problem. (I don't even necessarily believe they must be wrong.) But like so many other of these debates, I believe that many more folks have seen this and will read this in the future than have participated here. Hopefully, many of the points we toss back and forth may encourage others to explore a deeper understanding of these issues than the animal instinct, "fight-or-flight," "hammer -vs.- nail," view. While I appreciate your concern, it IS worth the effort, to me.

 

[Carl N. Brown]

You may never know what the exact circumstances those guys faced actually were and how much they knew or did not know. It is worth thinking about and weighing all options.

Firing the guys for doing what they thought was the righthing at that time, is like the pizza guy getting fired for using his personal concealed carry weapon to defend against an armed robber. Apparently the pizza shop's lawyer or insurance did not want the company to be held liable for employees defending themselves from criminal attack on company time.

Irony is, back in the 1970s I was talking to a couple of city detectives hanging out at a motorbike shop. They told me that a successful armed robbery would be followed by a repeat by the same robber or by a copycat. An armed robber shot by police or by a victim would mean no armed robbery for months, til the lesson wore off.

Self defense, armed or unarmed, is going to be second guessed by the proverbial "reasonable person" with 20/20 hindsight and more info than you had available at the time.

 

[Neverwinter]

Once the BG had the gun out they had no choice but to assume that he was going to use it, regardless of what the BG said. There was the very real possibility that one or more innocent persons were going to be killed or seriously injured.

The only question here is whether it was safer to act or not. They were there we weren't so we cannot judge either way.

The assumption that pulling the gun meant that he wanted to kill at least one person is faulty, and largely biased through our own opinions on the threshold of drawing a weapon. Around here the general sentiment of when to unholster is based on having reason and intent to fire it. Needless to say, the practices of responsible and law abiding gun owners is not something which can be assumed of a repeat offender.

The anti-gun movement wants society to believe that us concealed/open carriers only have a handgun because we want to shoot someone when the exact opposite is true. Others in this thread have done the same thing, assuming that the offender was itching to shoot someone by virtue of having the gun.

 

[9mm+]

Hopefully, many of the points we toss back and forth may encourage others to explore a deeper understanding of these issues than the animal instinct, "fight-or-flight," "hammer -vs.- nail," view. While I appreciate your concern, it IS worth the effort, to me.

I think this is a good point and the reason why so many people have responded to this thread. The reality is that while many of us can rationally analyze this sitting in front of our computers, everything goes out the window when you're the one facing the gun. This is why the police and the military train, train, train, and train again so that responses will be ingrained without knee-jerk reactions. Even then, though, they sometimes get it wrong. Adrenaline pumping through the body causes the mind to do very weird and often irrational things.

 

[Guillermo]

While I know that the subject is strategies and tactics, the concept of right and wrong should not be eliminated from the discussion.

A bad guy, armed, attempts to rob a store and take a hostage.
Some unarmed guys take him down.
How is this bad?

There are fates worse than death and being a rabbit is one of them. If more bad guys are resisted perhaps some of them will think twice about their acts. Will some innocents get hurt, possibly. But better to die fighting than live on your hands and knees behind an endcap of Valentine chocolate.

Of course I have not done a great job of explaining the concept. Jeff Cooper did a much better job in his introduction to ride shoot straight and speak the truth .

I applaud the WalMart employees. They risked their lives to fight evil. What greater testament can one be said about any of us?

 

[Sam1911]

Others in this thread have done the same thing, assuming that the offender was itching to shoot someone by virtue of having the gun.

Yes. Or, similarly, saying that the criminal mind is beyond knowing and cannot be expected to work along rational, goal-oriented paths. Which leads back to your point:

"He has a gun, therefore we must act with the certainty that he will kill us immediately. We must take the ultimate risk this very instant because once that gun comes out our lives are utterly forfeit."

I don't find that assumption to be inviolable. In fact, I believe it to be less credible than the opposing view which is that this person has a goal and won't deliberately take steps which hinder his accomplishment of that goal.

If killing a hostage, other employees, shoppers, and the door greeter makes his situation WORSE, I don't see the majority of petty criminals taking that path.

If employees lay hands on him to physically restrain him, I DO see him escalating violence.

Nothing is absolute, here, but every path presents better or worse odds.

 

[Sam1911]

Some unarmed guys take him down.
How is this bad?

If by the actions of the unarmed guys, people had died when they otherwise would not have, this is bad. And that was one fractional TWITCH away from the happy result that did happen.

You may say that is a worthwhile trade-off to make for the greater good. So someone dies, at least we resisted evil. But that's cold comfort to the dead employee's family.

It is good to resist theft. It is bad to trade life for company property. At least Walmart seems to think so. That's pretty big-hearted of them.

 

[Guillermo]

So someone dies, at least we resisted evil. But that's cold comfort to the dead employee's family.

To the people of today...yes probably so.

So few have values and principles.

To most folks these days living a coward is preferable to dying for anything.

It is disgusting that the ancestors of the people that fought the Revolutionary War and two World Wars believe that we don't have to fight and perhaps die for our way of life.

I find it nauseating that these heroes, who stopped an armed felon who was stealing and taking hostages are being second guessed.

When the ball dropped they stepped in harms way and took down the bad guy.

My hat is off to them.

 

[Sam1911]

To most folks these days living a coward is preferable to dying for anything.

So if it had been your son who was the hostage, and he took a bullet in the kidney when the other loss-prevention fellows grabbed the thief, and he died there on the floor of a WalMart back room over a piece of merchandise worth less than a week's pay, and belonging not to him, or to his friend or family, but to a multi-billion dollar company that is so heavily insured as to feel no impact if they lost a TRUCKLOAD of these things -- you'd say that was a worthwhile loss?

Ponder it carefully, because that's what you're asking this man's family to decide.

If it was my son, I'd PRAY for him to be a bigger coward than that. The entire company is not worth his life.