You may have heard of the controversial firing of Portland, Oregon, Home Depot employee Dillon Reagan that happened a little over a year ago. What played out that crazy day back in May, 2017, was like a scene out of a movie.
Reagan was finishing up his shift at the store’s tool rental center when he heard his coworker yell for help. Apparently, there was a violent domestic dispute taking place in the parking lot. Soon after things got very chaotic, KGW.com reports.
“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!”
Reagan and his coworker temporarily excused themselves from their shift to call the police, and at the dispatcher’s urging, they continued to pursue the man on foot for about three blocks until the police responded to the scene. After giving their statements to the officers, Reagan said they both returned to the store about 10 minutes later.
When he got back to the store, Reagan was subsequently scolded by his supervising manager, who said he did the wrong thing and that he should have just gone back to work. It seems that by leaving the store’s premises during his shift, he had violated the company’s safety policy.
This was Reagan’s second offense in less than a month, as just a few weeks prior he had been written up for arguing with a coworker.
On June 19, he was fired from the company in a meeting where they once again reminded him of his actions on May 12, although if given the chance he said he would do the same thing all over again.
“It was still the right thing to do,” said Reagan. “I was kind of in a catch-22 situation, I’m damned if I do, damned if I don’t. “
There were a large number of twists and turns between the store and where the police finally apprehended the suspect, and if Reagan hadn’t followed the man, the officers would never have known where to look for him.
KGW News reached out to Home Depot about the situation. In a short statement, Home Depot responded:
“This was a very complex situation, so we’re taking another look at the decision. We always want to be certain that we’re treating any associate fairly.”
Luckily for Reagan, in the most recent update the company decided to reverse their decision, but not before he had been out of work already for some time. Their updated statement is as follows:
“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.”
Although they also promised Reagan he would receive back pay for the hours he had missed after he had been laid off, Reagan still was very uneasy about the situation. When asked if he would take them up on their offer, he initially said no.
However, after some further deliberation he decided that he would indeed go back to work.
“Going back to work at Home Depot may not be ideal and I am still hesitant and wary about being back, but I think it’s the best choice, right now.”
The main reasons according to Reagan were that he enjoyed working with the other employees in his department, and also that he liked helping customers with projects.
See the video below for the full story from KGW.
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