Store fires guard for stopping teen from stealing booze
April 24, 2008 by Fred HosierPosted in: Dubious decisions, HR blunder of the week, In this week's e-newsletter, Latest News & Views, Rules made to be broken
When an employee violates company policy with only good intentions in mind, what do you do? In the case of an employee at one retail store, the answer was, fire him.
Target store security guard Dean Babcock saw a 16-year-old girl trying to steal a bottle of tequila. The teen had been caught on a security camera just days earlier stealing a bottle of rum.
Babcock should stop the teen, right? But only certain guards at the Lake, Geneva, WI, Target were authorized to stop shoplifters, and Babcock wasn’t one of them, despite being a retired police officer.
Problem #2: None of the authorized guards were on duty that day. (Who made that schedule?)
So Babcock thought he’d found a way to stick to store policy and keep alcohol out of the hands of an underage teen: He contacted the girl’s father instead of police. Four days later, Target fired him, according to wire service reports.
“They fired me for stopping a 16-year-old girl from stealing alcohol,” Babcock said.
Target declined comment on Babcock’s specific case but said they “take shoplifting very seriously.”
Then why were no authorized guards on duty?
Tags: employee fired, security guard, shoplifting
April 25th, 2008 at 11:33 am
Another instance of protecting the criminal. Another reason crime is high in the United States.
April 25th, 2008 at 2:38 pm
A classic example of the excess of mindless, corporate bureacracy.
April 25th, 2008 at 3:13 pm
Maybe he just didn’t follow policy. If policy read “authorized guards should call police”, then Babcock did not follow policy because he called the teen’s father. The rightful terminee should have been the scheduler.
April 25th, 2008 at 3:39 pm
I can only guess, the problem was a violation of her rights when he contacted her father about his underage daughter trying to one…steal and two…….steal something she wasn’t legally able to purchase or use. So, someone is seen on a video tape from a few days before trying to steal, she’s caught again trying to do the same thing and that’s okay? I understand policy; but firing seems rather harsh.
April 25th, 2008 at 4:10 pm
Isn’t there anyone who leaves room in their policies for a bit of common sense and decency????
April 25th, 2008 at 5:34 pm
Another instance of strictly adhereing to the letter of the law, while ignoring the spirit of the law. In all fairness, Target has not chosen to tell their side of things (their choice, but may be related to individual privacy concerns). It could very well be that this particular employee already had a long, documented track record of violating this policy in more harmful ways, and this was just the last straw. Just the same, I wonder how the parents of this teenager felt: relieved, since their child will not have a record, or relieved that she was stopped from putting herself at risk by drinking what she was trying to steal? Or, maybe they wish she had just plain gotten away with it…which would just mean she would be sure to do it again & again, until cought.
April 28th, 2008 at 4:39 pm
We have all been in a postion where we had to make a tough decision. This security guard was definetly in one of those. I agree that he should not have called the girl’s father, however, I disagree with Targets decision to fire him. With keeping in the sprit of doing the right thing, let’s give the security guard the benfit of the doubt and assume he was not trained properly in protocol. Write him up, don’t fire him!
May 1st, 2008 at 10:37 am
It appears that by Target making such a harsh decision that this may have been the break they were looking for to terminate the employee. Not very smart on their behalf. Although most of us do not agree with their decision who is to say that the employee had not broken other policies and had been properly written up, and this was a disregard of policy and this was their way of (cross your fingers) ending the employment relationship with this guy. I’m sure this will end with a lawsuit or a settlement of sorts. Still not very smart on Target’s behalf.
May 9th, 2008 at 1:19 pm
Stealing- that’s tricky. Did the girl actually walk out of the store with the tequila on her person? How did the security guard know how to reach her parents? The securing guard was put in an awkward situation, and the blame should be directed at the person scheduling for not having proper security coverage everyday.
I agree with Lynn’s comment that the security guard may not have been properly trained, but wasn’t he a former police officer? He was most likely acting in a manner befitting an officer on duty, rather than a Target security employee.
I imagine Target needed to make a decision and firing the guard seemed like the right thing to do at the time, since he violated a policy. I’m not sure that in retrospect that was the best option- but hey- welcome to the world of HR- nothing is clearcut, it’s all gray.
May 12th, 2008 at 10:33 am
I hate to say this but the guard probably should have been fired. I personally would have written him up for breach of policy. My belief is that in such a situation is that he should have contacted someone in management. After he let them know what was happening its their responsibility.
On a different note if he had witnessed it as a person and not as an employee he would have been responsible to report seeing a crime.
May 14th, 2008 at 9:44 am
Target needs to temper their policy’s to fit community standards for what any reasonable responsible adult would do in the same situation. There is no reasonable expectation of privacy for public conduct, like stealing. What if this girl had been injured or killed as result of her actions; is the store liable for their failure to act to protect a minor child? The guard shouldn’t have been fired, whoever wrote Targets irresponsible policy should.
May 16th, 2008 at 1:28 pm
KUDOS, Gary!
I am relatively new to the HR arena but completely agree that the situation had the potential to reach far more serious extremes if the girl been injured or caused an injury due to the stolen liquor.
After spending several years in restaurant mgmt., I can say first-hand, that like it or not, if you go out to a club or a restaurant and have too much to drink, then you drive home and kill someone, the restaurant AND the bartenders AND the servers can all be held liable! REASON: If you knowingly serve someone alcohol, that is visibly intoxicated, you can be held personbally responsible. Same thing applies if your best friend gets you trashed at his house and then you drive home. You can sue him! It may get tied up in court for a 100 years but your name is still on the docket.
Unless there were offenses in the officer’s employment history with Target, that may have pushed him over a point system limit or something (if he had only been reprimanded), then I do not agree with the termination. If a write up for a minor policy violation would have pushed him beyond the allowed number “wrist-slaps” then perhaps he should be suspended and/or terminated at that point, as there is slightly more there than meets the eye.
In any case, the girl needs to be forced to do a few weekends of community service. She’s off to a bad start at sweet sixteen!
September 5th, 2008 at 10:40 am
We don’t know all the details from the story, therefore most of the comments are irrelevant. I could go six different ways if I knew all the facts.
September 29th, 2008 at 9:48 am
Having worked in retail security before, and having done scheduling, what has not been addressed here is the total disregard that a corporate retail mindset has for adequate security concerns. In my case, the security department (of a large national chain) only allowed the security manager to schedule 60 hours per week, including the manager’s hours. Since the store was open 74 hours per week and the on duty officer had to conduct audits, interviews and inventory control, all while trying to monitor the camera system AND walk the floors, it is a wonder that the officer in question in this matter even had time to act in apprehending the juvenile thief. His action required a split-second decision – which would have precluded notifying a manager (who may or may not respond, depending on which salesperson’s crisis of the moment – customer service overwriting security in 99% of the cases) or calling for the authorities. The Security Officer was a retired law enforcement officer trained in crime prevention by a much more effective institution than a Target VP of Loss Prevention. This is just another case of “the customer (public opinion) is always right” mentality of retail operations.