Kristopher Oswald thought he was doing a good deed by helping out a woman he saw being assaulted in the parking lot at the Walmart where he works. But it turns out that his actions are against company policy and he was fired.
The incident happened earlier this week at the Hartland, Michigan store at 2:30 a.m. Oswald spotted a man and a woman in an altercation while sitting outside during his lunch break. He heard the woman screaming, but wasn’t really sure that she was in danger until he heard the man yell “I'm going to kill you.”
In an interview with Detroit’s WXYZ-TV, Oswald said that he jumped on top of the man, but then two others jumped him from behind. Livingston County Sheriff deputies arrived a short time later.
Instead of praising him, Walmart fired him, stating “after a violation of company policy on his lunch break, it was determined to end his temporary assignment.”
“We had to make a tough decision, one that we don't take lightly, and he's no longer with the company," company spokeswoman Ashley Hardie told the Associated Press.
Oswald, who had been working at the store for seven weeks, said that Walmart’s policies on workplace violence are meant to stop violence between workers, but there’s no policy on what happens if an employee feels that he is in danger.
When asked if he’d do it again, knowing that he would be fired, Oswald told WXYZ, “I will always do the right thing.”
image: Wikimedia Commons
