The store manager at Family Dollar on Wayne Avenue is a friend of mine. We’ve lived on the same street for 29 years, and when she was a teen, I had her working for me doing minor office work. This morning, Family Dollar fired her over the altercation at her store on Saturday.
Here’s the story from the Dayton Daily news:
DAYTON —A woman told police she was desperate to support her crack cocaine habit when she tried to walk out of Family Dollar with a cartload of items.
Sparkle Colquitt, 33, is being held on suspicion of felony robbery after her arrest Saturday, according to the Dayton police report.
Family Dollar employees told police the woman walked in and started going down the aisles and loading up a shopping cart.
The alleged shoplifter then pushed the cart toward the entrance. An employee moved to block the door and asked the suspect what she was doing, to which she replied, “Making it easier on myself,” according to the report.
Police said the suspect started to pull hair and fight with the employees, who were able to subdue her and hold her down for police.
She was trying to walk out of the store with more than $255 worth of items, according to the report.
Police said while she was questioned in the back of a cruiser, Colquitt admitted she was addicted to crack cocaine and planned to sell the items she was about to steal to get money to buy more of the drug.
Colquitt, who has a history of arrests in Montgomery County dating back to 2000, is scheduled to appear for an arraignment on Monday.
via Police: Crack addict caught shoplifting sparks fight at Family… | www.mydaytondailynews.com [1].
This isn’t the first time I’ve written about Family Dollar and their mistreatment of employees: Boycott Family Dollar. Makes Walmart look good on employee compensation [2]. Since then, the store installed real video cameras. However, the security guard they provided after the in-store gun discharge only lasted a few weeks- apparently, this store doesn’t “make enough” to provide real security for its employees.
On Saturday, the manager was in the back with two other employees, putting away inventory from their weekly truck delivery when they heard a ruckus up front. When they got to the checkout, she immediately grabbed her cell phone and called 911- one of the other employees went to help the cashier who was having her hair yanked by the crack addict. That employee grabbed the crackhead and threw her to the floor- and detained her. While waiting for the police to come (the video shows it took almost 10 minutes to respond to an assault in progress) they let the crack addict back up- and she grabbed the manager’s hair- and started pulling her through the gap between the security device and the wall. More fighting broke out.
Nothing ended up stolen, and the addict is in custody. The assistant manager was fired Monday, and the manager today. This is not an April Fool’s joke.
Family Dollar has a horrible record of labor relations. Salaried managers often end up working 70+ hours a week to make a “budget” that purposely doesn’t include enough hours to properly staff a store. Shrinkage of inventory is counted against margins and managers are held accountable, despite the store not providing tools to combat shrinkage like security guards, or double doors with the ability to lock a thief in.
If anyone is looking for a hard-working, honest, employee with retail experience, please contact me and I will put you in touch with a very special woman who has 2 kids and a disabled baby daddy at home to support. I’d love for her to work for Costco or Aldi/Trader Joe’s- but with the hours she has at Family Dollar she never has time to apply.
I’ve contacted an attorney to represent her in this case. There is no reason that crack addicts should cause anyone to lose their job.
Shame on Family Dollar! I have spread this story on Facebook, Twitter and Google+ , and encourage others to do the same.
Sounds like she needs a good Union to turn to……..
I originally thought that this was a case of intervening with physical force to prevent theft, which, while understandable, is something the employer can reasonably prohibit. This was a person who intervened to protect one of her employees who was being assaulted. At that point, the original reason for the “customer” to assault the cashier is irrelevant: A manager has an affirmative moral duty to protect her employees from assault.
More broadly, if we each took seriously our obligation toward our fellow person, we’d step in when we see someone being assaulted. We are all in this together, and for this woman to lose her job because she acted in defense of herself and another is frankly disgusting.
Perhaps a group of like-minded neighbors could peacefully occupy every aisle of the store until the district manager or corporate office elects to do the right thing? If nothing else, it would turn a below-the-fold newspaper story into a visual item that local stations would be interested in carrying.
So, #OccupyFamilyDollar anyone?
It is ignorant that Corporate has done this. We protect their merchandise, and get attacked in the process, and in return they fire us. They say don’t stop them, but they don’t understand how bad of an area it is there. They don’t understand that if we let people just walk out with bags full of things then word would get around fast and pretty soon everyone would be coming and loading their bags as they please. That store is going to go way downhill, and it will be their fault. They don’t care about their employees, they only care about their image. I wish there was something I could do.
Just 2 weeks ago there was an incident about a story of a bus driver and (please fill me in of the details of these if you have known of them) about a school bus driver and a special needs student. On the special needs student that was given a varsity tee by the parent to wear to help him fit in better with their peers to be respected and instead reprimanded and told that he could not wear it. The principle and teachers said since he was not playing at the varsity level to remove the tee. A simple solution would of been to color the letters different and leave it in place or other idea that everyone would of obviously understood out of common decency and doing something nice for a change as it is obvious that they are oblivious to the fact that these students have specific needs; go back to basics. Someone else got the blame for trying to do the right thing or make things right but get punished when it should of been the other way around. A Change.org petition is on the internet for any to sign to allow him to wear the shirt. Here it is: http://www.yahoo.com/music/bp/special-needs-student-told-he-can-t-wear-varsity-letter-jacket-162953378. perhaps a change.org petition could be started for the manager at family dollar and fellow employees. Same thing here with the manager by defending herself and her employees from the great harm that was imminent or taking place and action was needed. Now some corporate individual that has no idea what took place at one of the chain stores that is managed just blindly terminate someone without gathering facts, understanding, and taking the necessary time reading of the situation in lines of communication and caring for individuals as each situation is different and unique and sometimes a human touch is what is needed. We actually end up hurting ourselves by too many layers of bureaucracy, attorney written rules. Policies already in place need to be followed instead new ones are added on layers of redundancy because of a monetary reason, power trip, or other reason… Read more »
And the DDn and WHIO have all taken this story and run with it.
http://www.mydaytondailynews.com/news/news/crime-law/police-crack-addict-caught-with-cartload-at-family/nkhNq/
I have voicemail recordings of the WHIO TV reporter calling to get contact info.
Never mentioned where the story broke.
Read Esrati.com and learn about things first.
[…] business practices by a government that can’t figure out how to plow snow, sweep streets, or get a cop to a Family Dollar while an assault is taking place in less than 10 minutes. Why our city is so focused on other people’s business instead of running their own is a […]
And for the ultimate insult- Ms. Knight has to appear at the Grand Jury to help convict the crackhead who caused her to lose her job.
Good news- the former Family Dollar manager has been hired by Dollar General to run their Trotwood store.