Should a man be fired for helping stop a purse snatcher?

Caught part of an interesting story on the news this morning: a man (u.s. army vet) working at a grocery store was alerted that a woman just had her purse snatched. He shouted to call 911 and followed the man outside, he said he was about 45 seconds behind him. People outside pointed him in the direction the thief went and came to a tall grassy field, he found an elevated position and waited to see if the thief would pop his head up, sure enough he did and the guy located him. I’m not sure whether he actually took him down or just gave the police the location, but the grocery store fired him for giving chase and endangering the safety of customers. His argument is that he followed him to an empty field and no one else was around, and if he hadn’t the thief was sure to get away. I tried searching for this story and saw another headline: “Bank teller fired for catching robber” Should a good deed go punished like this?