A Walmart employee punched out a store manager after they got in a heated argument, and the confrontation — which would not win any awards from human resources — was captured on cell phone video.
The incident of workplace violence appears to have occurred in the break room of an as yet unidentified Walmart store while other employees were just trying to relax and eat lunch. One of the workers can be overheard on the video prophetically saying “don’t hit him.”
The worker and the manager apparently got into an argument over something to do with a shopping cart the night before.
In the video, the angry employee claims that the manager has disrespected him and is a racist. The manager responds that the employee is a liar, so a lot of buttons were being pushed. Despite his anger, the worker is heard apologizing to a female employee who may have been a peacemaker for cursing. At about two minutes into the video as the quarrel continues, the worker slugs the manager in the face and seemingly knocked him out cold. Before the fisticuffs, the two men actually did agree on one thing — that reviewing the security camera footage from the night before would be good idea.
As the worker walks off, he tosses away his Walmart ID badge — which he likely won’t be needing anymore. Presumably the police were called and an investigation is ongoing. Hopefully the manager was not seriously hurt.
In June, a customer took a two-year-old girl hostage in an Oklahoma Walmart at knifepoint. The man was shot and killed by police to save the hostage’s life. In December, a customer at a New York Walmart punched a 70-year-old store greeter in the face and is now serving five years behind bars.
Do you think the manager in this scenario would have been better off just walking away and letting the situation cool down before it escalated into violence?