When we go to work in the morning, we don’t expect our day to change significantly before we get home. Every once in a while, however, we may be called upon to do something that is significantly different than what is in our job description. That was the case for this employee who had the opportunity to put the safety of a child ahead of his own job. It is a noteworthy and honorable thing to do but unfortunately, he was fired for his efforts.
Dillon Reagan was working at Home Depot that day when he heard a rather violent domestic dispute taking place outside in the parking lot. It was so loud that it caught his attention and he decided he had to do something about it. His shift was coming to a close at the tool rental center in the store when the event took place. A local news station reported the following about it.
“At the time, the only thing I was thinking about was the child’s safety,” said Regan who worked at the Home Depot for four years. “I stepped outside and sure enough, there’s this lady whose frantic and crying, ‘Somebody help me, please! He’s stealing my kid, he’s kidnapping my child!”
Dillon Reagan says he was fired from Home Depot for doing the right thing. "Because you assisted the police in preventing a kidnapping." pic.twitter.com/GwEfFMs6yK
— Keaton Thomas (@keaton_thomas) July 5, 2017
Reagan left his post along with his coworker to contact the police department. The dispatcher said that he should follow the man on foot until the police were able to arrive. It ended up being about three blocks away.
“There was any number of twists or turns that he could have taken once he got off the premises that the police wouldn’t have known where to look for him. I think I did the right thing,” Reagan told ABC 6. “I broke the safety violation of leaving the store premises while on duty.”
Police were there within 10 minutes and Reagan went back to his job at Home Depot. His manager yelled at him and said he did the wrong thing. Since an argument had also taken place with an employee a few weeks before, he was fired.
“It was still the right thing to do,” Reagan said. “I was kind of in a catch-22 situation, I’m damned if I do, damned if I don’t.”
When Home Depot was contacted by the news outlets, they started thinking about their decision.
“This is a very complex situation, so we’re taking another look at the decision,” they told KGW.com. “We always want to be certain that we’re treating any associate fairly.”
They eventually issued this statement:
“We took a second look at this and have let Mr. Reagan know that we’ve decided to reverse our decision, based on the circumstances. We always do our diligence to make sure associates are treated fairly, which we’ve done in this case.”