GREENWOOD VILLAGE, Colo. (KDVR) — They thought they were doing the right thing. Instead, five employees at a King Soopers grocery store in Greenwood Village were terminated for holding a shoplifting suspect and calling the police.
It’s been more than six months since the employees were fired, and they still haven’t received an arbitration date to hear their appeals.
“I think it is a travesty of justice, quite frankly,” said Greg McArthur, one of the five King Soopers employees.
The other four employees let go for the Nov. 2 incident are Teresa Maldonado, Julie Olivett, Pressley Swenson and Naghi Salimi.
All five sat down separately with the Problem Solvers to talk about what each felt was a wrongful termination.
“Just trying to help,” said Naghi Salimi, who moved to Colorado from Iran in 2017. He said King Soopers was the one and only place he had worked since emigrating to the United States.
“I never thought I’d be fired for this,” said Pressley Swenson, who had only been on the job three months.
“It’s hit my family hard financially, emotionally,” said Julie Olivett, who at age 62 said she was blindsided by the termination. “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.”
“I felt like my life was in danger,” said Teresa Maldonado, who had worked at King Soopers for 31 years when she was fired.