Army veteran, Jim Tinney, 70, is fired from Home Depot for trying to stop thieves taking tool kits worth 'thousands of dollars'

Uh oh!  Looks like Home Depot is in for a troublesome round of negative press with this decision.  I've seen this type of thing before. 
Liability issues are more often the rationale for the policy of not letting employees engage law breakers directly.  But, that should be a case by case thing.  Cut Jim some slack and give him his job back!    

Daily Mail reports a 70-year-old Army veteran was fired because he tried to stop thieves from leaving the Home Depot where he worked.

Jim Tinney saw three thieves about to take off with valuable tool sets form the Home Depot in Pearland, Texas.

'One of them hollered, "let's go" and they all grabbed their kits and started heading out,' he said.

That's when he threw a paint roller extension at their feet, trying to stop them as a knee-jerk reaction, Fox 6 reported.

'In the Army, they train you to do things like that,' he added.

The shoplifters made it out with the tools, which he said were worth thousands of dollars.

Two weeks later, Tinney was fired. Though he knew stopping shoplifters was against company policy, he said he acted on a automatically.

'I think they could have written me up and reprimanded me, but terminate me? That's pretty strong,' he said.
  

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