PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) — A Portland man says he was fired for doing the right thing — jumping to action when he thought a child was in danger at his store.
On the Friday night before Mother’s Day, Dillon Reagan was working at the Home Depot at Mall 205 when he heard a pounding on the door.
“It ended up being one of our lot associates and he looked panicked and said ‘I need to know where the phone is, I need to call police,’” Reagan said. Then he raced out to the parking lot.
“What I see is some lady screaming frantically, ‘Somebody help me, he’s stealing my kid, he’s kidnapping my kid’ tears running down her face,” he said.
Reagan said police on the phone told him to keep an eye on things, but not get too close to the man. He said he followed the man on foot off store property, which is against store rules, until police arrived.
“I didn’t recall it at the time of the incident, then again, I could only really focus on ‘Is this kid OK?’” Reagan said. “It’s all I could think of.”
A few weeks later, Reagan said he met with store managers and a third-party group then went back to work.
“…and it was maybe about a week and a half, two weeks later, that I was finally called back and let go,” Reagan said.
The incident Reagan witnessed turned out not to be an attempted kidnapping. Portland police said it was an argument between a man a woman and the man walked away with their child.
Late Wednesday night, Home Depot corporate communications sent CBS’s Portland, Oregon, affiliate KOIN an email that said:
“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.”
Reagan said he hasn’t decided whether or not to accept his job back, but he’s taking life in stride with a new motto: “No good goes unpunished.”WHAT OTHERS ARE CLICKING ON:
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