A Colorado grocery store worker is unemployed because he did the right thing.
Santino Burrola, a military veteran, was working at King Soopers when he noticed three men running away from the store with hundreds of dollars worth of laundry detergent.
Mr. Burrola captured the entire incident on video.
“My first instinct was to record,” he told CBS Colorado.
Burrola followed the men outside to their car and posted the footage on TikTok.
“Look at them stealing,” he says off-camera. “Really bro? You gotta resort to this? Economy’s not that bad.”
Mr. Burrola should’ve been given a pay raise and a certificate of appreciation. Instead, he was suspended and subsequently fired.
NewsNation reports that five staffers at another King Soopers were fired after they restrained a man who was robbing the store armed with a box cutter. The staffers held the man down until police arrived.
“It’s hit my family hard financially, emotionally,” one of the employees, Julie Olivett, said to NewsNation local affiliate KDVR. “I’ve lost my health insurance. I lost all my benefits for something that’s just unfair because I did nothing wrong. I was in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
King Soopers declined to comment on the specifics of Mr. Burrola’s ouster.
“We appreciate that in this instance, their actions may have been well intended,” King Soopers said in a statement. “However, they violated the very policies that are in place for everyone’s safety. Nothing in our stores is worth sacrificing that core value and their safe return home.”