Louisiana Disabled Vet Fired by Academy Sports for Trying to Stop a Theft [VIDEO]

An Academy Sports + Outdoors store in Lafayette has fired one of its managers for violating what is, evidently, one of its strictest company policies: Don't make any attempt to stop a theft in progress at one of their stores.

But in this instance, the dismissed Academy manager seen in a recently "gone viral" video was not only an employee with more than ten years of outstanding service to the company, but a disabled veteran who worked for Academy in three different states after she was medically discharged from the Army after suffering a shoulder injury.

The story begins on January 10, when a video from a Lafayette Academy store showed an employee being punched by an angry customer. But the original clip, seen by thousands, was edited to show only the final moments of a confrontation that reportedly began when another Academy employee spotted a women with a full buggy of merchandise headed toward the main exit.

Here is, as the say, the rest of the story.

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Moments earlier, as the face-to-face between the employee and woman with the loaded buggy began to escalate, the manager / veteran asked the woman to leave. It was then that the customer got violent. She grabbed a large backpack from a nearby clothing display and swung it toward the manager. The manager then grabbed it, attempting to defend herself and was then punched by the customer.

The women stormed out of the store, sans buggy it would appear, while the manager / veteran tended to her bloodied mouth. She then reported the incident to her supervisor and to Lafayette police. A week later, she was terminated by Academy.

Like many retailers these days, Academy's policy is for workers to allow thieves to leave the store with the merchandise unchallenged. And sadly, more and more thieves know it...and they're taking advantage.

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