Maria Escobedo, 26, was shot at Meridian Oil Inc. in Houston, where she was a secretary. Bruce Flippin, 49, was killed at the John Dewar meatpacking company in Boston, where he was plant manager. Lawyer John Scully, 28, and seven other people were killed at the offices of Pettit & Martin in San Francisco; Scully died shielding another wounded lawyer, his wife. The San Francisco murderer was Gian Luigi Ferri, a failed businessman who blamed lawyers, among others, for his problems, and took two 9-mm semiautomatic pistols up to the 34th floor of a downtown skyscraper to prove his point.
While the San Francisco killings made national headlines, news of the others blended into the usual busy flow of crime reports. But these deaths mark the invasion of violence into another seemingly safe place in the social landscape. Crimes of the workplace manifest themselves in different ways. Ferri was a former client of Pettit & Martin, and he believed they gave him bad advice. Escobedo was killed by an estranged boyfriend after a domestic dispute spilled over at work. But for many killers, the workplace itself is the target. The U.S. Postal Service, where 38 employees have died violently since 1986, is studying ways to give workers more voice in their work lives. The Department of Energy is evaluating potential threats at nuclear and other facilities. Private employers are installing hot fines to pick up tips on employees most likely to explode when a layoff is announced.
Since 1980, at least 750 people a year have been murdered at work, making it the third leading cause of occupational death, and the first cause of death for women at work, says the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, a government agency. The number of managers killed by employees doubled, to 24 a year from 12, says James Fox, dean of the College of Criminal Justice at Northeastern University. First Security Services in Boston now fields eight times the number of queries it did a year ago from executives threatened with violence. Last fall NIOSH issued a report declaring workplace homicide a “significant” public-health problem, and recently asked the Federal Bureau of Investigation to begin tracking these homicides separately. Deaths themselves are just the “tip of the iceberg,” says Joseph A. Kinney, executive director of the National Safe Workplace Institute. Garry Mathiason, a San Francisco lawyer, estimates that there are at least 30,000 violent incidents a year.
Such statistics paint a picture of the problem, but hardly answer the hard questions:
The violent workplace mirrors an increasingly violent society. The proliferation of guns, for example, is a factor; 75 percent of workplace homicides are committed with firearms, says NIOSH. Domestic violence has spilled into the workplace, ironically, as it has been pushed out of the home; a man who is slapped with a restraining order on a woman’s home can still track her down at the office.
But in a flat economy, many people with mounting bills, a pressured job or the loss of one see their employers and other organizations as the source of the problem. Last week a man who officials said had lost his disability pay stormed a state insurance office in Las Vegas. Most employees who kill managers or colleagues have been fired or feel mistreated. When “employees are treated as disposable commodities,” says Bruce Blythe, president of Crisis Management International, the company loses moral authority. Reports of sky-high executive salaries exacerbate such anger, says a compensation expert. “We have a war of haves and have-nots,” says Ira A. Lipman, chairman of Guardsmark, Inc., a security firm. The have-nots probably won’t rise up and revolt. But the workplace has become an ad hoc battlefield.
If the workplace murder is the result of a robbery or a domestic-violence dispute, the profile is familiar. But with other cases, people are tempted to dismiss the killer as a crazy or criminal individual who would have committed murder somewhere, sometime, and simply couldn’t be stopped. Experts say it isn’t that simple. “The idea of a normal person snapping is absolutely wrong,” says attorney Mathiason, but “it is also wrong to view them [all] as a criminal type.” Some show anger and suspicion that border on clinical paranoia. But many, argues John Hamrock, head of the employee assistance program for Amoco Corp., are people whose unanswered resumes and unpaid medical bills mount until “they become so overwhelmed with feelings of futility that they just explode.”
Those who target the workplace fit a general profile: they are primarily white males who have few social supports, tend to “externalize” or blame others for their problems and are preoccupied with weapons. San Francisco Police said Ferri had gun magazines in his apartment. Even more than most Americans, these men identify themselves with their work. “His primary anchor to society is his job,” says Steve Kaufer, a Palm Springs security consultant. “When he loses his job, he goes ballistic.” When Larry Hansel was fired from Elgar Corp. in 1991, he killed two supervisors he deemed responsible.
According to experts, quite a lot. Many killers, for example, signal their intention, but companies may ignore the signs. When claims manager Paul Calden was fired from Fireman’s Fund Insurance in Tampa, Fla., last year, he told the personnel executive, “You haven’t heard the last of this,” according to Det. Sgt. Harold Sells. She wrote up the comment in a memo to supervisors, but nothing was done. In January of this year, eight months later, Calden returned, killing three and wounding two, including the personnel manager. Firemarn’ s Fund, which could face lawsuits, declined to comment.
If managers hear of a problem, consultants believe, intervention is possible. Late last year Blythe was called into one company after a longtime employee began to act menacingly. He had swung a piece of pipe at a wall near another worker’s head and told the plant nurse that he’d like to kill people. Aided by plainclothes police and a psychiatrist, Blythe and a union/management team confronted the man, demanding that he take a paid leave and get help. Six months later he is on medication for depression-and back on the job.
Particularly autocratic work environments can be a problem. When an employee feels powerless, he may be more likely to strike out. The Postal Service now holds focus groups for employee input and is hiring managers with better interpersonal skills. Sensitivity to employees is particularly vital when layoffs are announced. Don’t follow the example of General Dynamics Corp., warns Northeastern’s Dean Fox. Earlier this year the company gave a longtime employee a pink slip on the day he returned to work after burying his 6-year-old son. This is especially striking, says Fox, because it was at General Dynamics a year earlier that former employee Robert Earl Mack shot and killed a supervisor, after he was fired while on a forced leave he believed was temporary (page 34). General Dynamics admitted that the layoff this year was mishandled.
Even where violence clearly comes from outside the workplace, employers can make a difference. When you hear of yet another convenience-store robbery, for example, you may not think of it as workplace homicide. But robbery has become an occupational hazard, say safety advocates, akin to handling molten metal in a steel plant. An employer, they say, must provide bulletproof glass for a store clerk, just as he would a pair of safety goggles. A NIOSH taskforce is studying the design and operation of convenience stores to develop a set of such safety measures. Some states have already acted; a new Florida law requires that such stores install cameras and alarms and put at least two clerks on duty at night.
Domestic violence that migrates to the workplace can also be an employer’s business. Mathiason cites a client who intervened and saved a life. When the company discovered that its receptionist’s husband was threatening her, says Mathiason, he advised that it contact police, get a restraining order and move the woman from the lobby to the second floor. Days later the husband drove a truck into the building, crushing the desk his wife had occupied.
Still, there are obstacles-many of them legal-to companies’ efforts to protect employees. Firing an employee who seems dangerous because of an alcohol or emotional problem could violate laws protecting disabled workers. Warning a prospective employer about an unstable applicant could provoke charges of slander. Investigation of an employee’s problems can raise issues of violations of privacy.
But companies will have to find answers, if for no reason other than financial. Courts in Florida and Texas ruled that employers found negligent have to pay awards to families of murdered victims. Insurance premiums are going up, and fearful employees and managers alike are preoccupied. In 1977, when Johnny Paycheck sang “Take This Job and Shove It,” millions could sing along-and laugh. These days, there’s little to laugh about.
