Fired Walmart Employee Apologizes After Fight With Customer: 'I Really Do Regret It'

A former Walmart employee in Tulsa, Oklahoma, apologized Monday after engaging in an argument with a customer. Video footage of the argument went viral after it hit Facebook on Saturday, attracting more than 270,000 views.

The fight stemmed from an employee-customer interaction gone wrong. A Walmart employee was tasked with asking customers to present their receipts before exiting the store, but one shopper had refused to do so. This resulted in the employee's colleague intervening to aid her co-worker, but that's when the situation escalated.

"As it's going on, I'm like 'ugh, I wish I didn't let her get me to that point,'" Laja Jefferson, the former Walmart employee, told KTUL, an ABC affiliate in Tulsa on Monday. "I really do regret it."

The footage of Jefferson's expletive-filled outburst against the customer, which was filmed and published on Facebook by fellow shopper Lacretia Durant, doesn't depict what led up to the seemingly intense verbal confrontation. Jefferson can be seen pushing a cart towards the customer as she screams: "Get the f--- out!"

"I'm paying for this...I was talking to her! You should stay out of it — stay out of it," the customer said before walking away with a cart full of groceries.

Jefferson repeatedly screamed for the shopper to exit the store before two fellow co-workers came to calm her down. She then claimed to be "tired" of customers like that.

"Employee had enough disrespect," Durant wrote Monday on Facebook. "Customer stated she will beat the employee...[and] shoved her."

Walmart didn't believe Jefferson's actions were excusable. This situation led to her firing over conduct that they "do not tolerate." Jefferson, however, ultimately understood the reasoning for her termination.

"We expect our associates to treat customers with respect at all times," the store said in a statement Monday to KTUL. "We do not tolerate actions like those seen in this video and the individual involved is no longer with the company."