PALM COAST — Four Home Depot employees in Palm Coast say they are shocked, saddened, and left wondering why they were fired this week after helping to recover almost $1,000 in stolen store merchandise.

Jeffrey Miller, 59, of Palm Coast said he'd been working at the store on Garden Street for 10 years when he was fired Wednesday over a November incident in which he tried to help other employees stop a suspected shoplifter.

He said his help landed an already-wanted thief in jail, but a company spokesman said the interference was against national corporate policy.

“I was really shocked," Miller said Thursday about being fired. “I never confronted this individual. Even if I saw him in a lineup I wouldn’t be able to show you what he looked like. All I was doing is getting a license plate (number)."

The suspect, Brandon Charles Edward Mullins Lowe, 22, of Hastings, was being held Friday in the Flagler County jail without bail on charges of grand theft from Home Depot in relation to the Nov. 19 incident, court and Sheriff's Office records show.

He also had two warrants out of Volusia County for charges of retail theft, records show.

Miller and co-worker Jazmin F. Kelly, 27, confirmed they had been let go by Home Depot, and so had coworker Joe P. Spector, 29, all of whom are listed in a Flagler County Sheriff's Office report as witnesses to the apparent shoplifting incident.

They were also participants in the events that led to Mullins Lowe confessing that he'd stolen nearly $1,000 worth of tools, according to the report.

The fourth employee, George Ippolito, 56, of Palm Coast, said he was fired Thursday night. He'd only been there about a year.

"To me, it wasn’t about pursuing a shoplifter," Ippolito said. "I saw a guy crashing a cart into one of the cashiers and I was responding to her aid. Then he looked like he was going to attack Joe. He started dropping all the merchandise, and then he ran away.”

Miller and Ippolito said Mullins Lowe pushed his cart into Kelly, the cashier. According to the Sheriff's Office report and Kelly, that happened after Kelly asked him for a receipt for his merchandise and wouldn't let him leave the store without it. She wasn't injured, she said.

What happened next is slightly different from account to account. Miller said he went outside to write down the suspect's license plate number. Ippolito said the suspect dropped the merchandise and he went to pick it up. Kelly said she didn't do anything after the suspect fled.

The Sheriff's Office report states that Miller, Ippolito and Spector chased after the suspect but backed off when he told Ippolito he had a gun. The suspect left but was located by deputies shortly afterward at a nearby Chick-Fil-A on Boulder Road Drive.

No gun was found but Mullins Lowe was arrested at the restaurant and charged with aggravated assault, battery, retail theft and possession of another person's identification. As of Friday, all charges had been dropped except for grand theft, court records show.

The retail theft charges remain open in Volusia County.

A Home Depot spokesman wouldn't comment specifically on the incident but confirmed that the retailer has a "firm policy" against employees interfering with suspected shoplifters.

“Pursuing shoplifters in the store or in the parking lot is extremely dangerous and risks the safety of everyone, which is why we only allow trained security personnel to do so," said Home Depot spokesman Steven Holmes.

"We’ve had instances of serious injury and even fatality in our stores. No amount of merchandise is worth risking the safety of others," he said.

That still left Kelly, the cashier, wondering.

"They said I should not have touched the cart, but I wasn’t told that I wasn’t supposed to touch carts," she said. "I was always told you are supposed to ask a customer for a receipt.

"I’m not sure what I’m going to do, but I will figure something else," Kelly said. "I have my family.”