METAIRIE, La. (WGNO) — Three employees at the Academy Sports + Outdoors in Metairie are without a job for responding to a shoplifter who took off with a gun.
On the evening of Dec. 16, a shoplifter fled the Academy on Veterans Memorial Boulevard with a pistol they were handed by a sales associate, who thought they were facilitating a sale.
Michelle Sutton, who was working as a team lead at the store, says once she received word on her radio, she immediately dropped what she was doing and jumped into action.
"I just took off,” Sutton said. “I knew I needed some form of way to help the police."
Sutton and two other sales associates ran out of the store to look for the suspect but were not able to locate him.
Four days after the incident, Sutton says Academy's firearm compliance personnel terminated her and the two employees for their response.
"Because we did run out the building, even though I and the other associate did stay on the sidewalk, it fell under [that] we left the front porch, as they call it," Sutton explained.
Academy’s policy states employees are not allowed to chase or physically restrain a fleeing suspect. However, loss prevention associates or managers are allowed to detain a suspect who's exited the store by approaching the person at a "non-threatening distance" and asking them to step back into the store.
"There’s no clarification on getting [the suspect’s] location for police,” Sutton said. “I know my store director had said that they want you to be able to get the make and model of a vehicle, you know, maybe a direction in which way the vehicle went."
In this case, Sutton says the suspect wasn't in a vehicle.
Although she would love her job back, Sutton says she’s mainly hoping employees can avoid these types of situations with a policy that's more transparent.
"Every store that sells firearms, especially pistols that are concealable, need to have clear policy,” Sutton said. “They need to have extra training. They need to prepare for the unexpected."
WGNO reached out to Academy for a statement but we haven't received a response.
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