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Omaha Violence in the Workplace

December 13th, 2007 Posted by Amelia

Another incident of violence in the workplace flies in the face of federal statistics, which show that such events are decreasing.

Last week a gunman in an Omaha mall killed 8 people and then turned his assault rifle on himself, according to the police chief.

Robert A. Hawkins, a troubled 19-year-old from Bellevue with a history of treatment in a mental hospital, started shooting in the store’s customer service area. He fired some 30 rounds, killing six employees and two customers before turning the assault rifle on himself. The victims were five women and three men, ranging in age from 24 to 66 years.

Five others were injured, two in critical condition, according to hospital officials.

The gunman apparently chose the victims at random.

The mall was closed for a week, while the Von Maur store was expected to be closed longer.

“It was just so loud, and then it was silence,” said Jennifer Kramer. She is a witness who hid inside a circular clothing rack. “I was scared to death that he’d be waling around looking for someone else.”

Hawkins left an apology on a friend’s voice mail just minutes before the 1:43 pm shootings. He also penned a suicide note. The young man lived with a friend’s family. In the note, he said that he was sorry. He didn’t want to be a burden to anyone. Hawkins also said that he was a “piece of s— all his life and now he’d be famous.”

Hawkins had recently been fired from his job at McDonald’s. Although he showed the assault rifle to a friend the day before the attack, she considered him mild-mannered and felt that he was not a danger to anyone but himself.

One victim, near the escalator on the second floor, was shot from the third floor when he announced that he was calling 911.

The shooting was just one of several cases of violence in the workplace during recent months.

A gunman in the area around the University of Wisconsin Madison made a false bomb threat against a local hospital and fired off shots, provoking a shootout with police. Officers said the man hoped to be killed in the September 25 incident. One officer at the scene described the episode as “a simple case of attempted ‘suicide by cop.’”

In another tragic event in September, a gunman shot and killed two students outside a dining hall at Delaware State University in Dover, Delaware. The school was put on lockdown and 1,700 students were restricted to their dormitories. The use of cell phones helped most students become aware of the shooting and the lockdown.

In Alexandria, Louisiana on October 5, a retired city maintenance worker killed two people and wounded three more before police shot him to death at a downtown law firm’s office. Killed were the son of one of the attorneys at the office and a postal worker who happened to be in the building delivering mail at the time. One of the injured was the son’s father, an attorney at the firm. Another attorney and a legal secretary were also injured. Two of the injured escaped, police rescued the third.

The most tragic workplace shooting of the year was the Virginia Tech massacre. In the April 15 incident, a young man killed 32 students and staff and wounded 17 others before taking his own life. The gunman, Seung-Hui Cho, showed what the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, or OSHA, described as warning signs of impending workplace violence. He was not being treated for his history of mental health problems. He showed signs of rage. He engaged in stalker-style behavior and developed crushes on women he barely knew, and isolated himself.

At an an Orlando Denny’s restaurant over Labor Day weekend, a waitress was stabbed by her estranged husband. Employees and customers chased the killer, who escaped over a fence, leaving behind a shoe and a bloody knife.