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Workplace Violence in Illinois

February 7th, 2008 Posted by Amelia

A deadly shooting at a suburban Illinois strip mall is just the latest in a months-long series of shootings in the workplace.

Although federal statistics for 2007 show that workplace violence is down, a number of very high-profile incidents belie that trend.

On February 2, a gunman attempted to rob a Lane Bryant women’s clothing store in Tinley Park, a middle-class suburb southwest of Chicago. The robbery apparently went wrong, and the gunman killed herded five women into the back room of the store before killing them execution-style.

The shooting occurred about 10:30 am. Police shut down the mall and searched the stores, but were not immediately able to locate the gunman.

The victims were identified as shoppers and workers aged 22 to 37.

One victim, Carrie Hudek Chiuso, 33, was a high-school social worker from Frankfort, Illinois who was shopping. Frankfort is a far-south suburb of Chicago. Students at Homewood-Flossmoor High School had counselor’s available to talk with about the death of the well-loved counselor. Ironically, this is exactly the type of team that Chiuso would have led, in the past.
The gunman apparently targeted a women’s clothing store specifically to reduce the chances that he would have to deal with male employees or customers.

Nationwide, according the Bureau of Labor Statistics, murders at work decreased from 200 per year in the early 1990s to just 94 in 2006. However, a number of recent violent incidents show that employers still need to be aware of violence in the workplace.

A 10-hour standoff on October 5, 2007 ended when a gunman in a downtown law office in Alexandria, Louisiana was shot and killed by police. The episode was one of several cases of workplace violence in past months. The 63-year-old retired city maintenance worker killed two people, including the son of one of the attorneys and a postal worker who happened to be delivering mail in the building at the time.

Alexandria mayor Jacques Roy said police got into the building after using explosives, and John Ashley, the gunman, died in a shootout. Ashley battled police attempts to rescue the law office staff. Finally two workers, both injured, managed to elude the gunman and escape, and police rescued a third. Injured were two attorneys – one of them the father of one of those murdered – and a legal secretary.

Virginia Tech was the site of the worst workplace violence incident in 2007, when a young man wounded 17 students and staff and killed 32 others before turning his gun on himself. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration, OSHA, says the gunman, Seung-Hut Cho showed signs of workplace violence. He was not being treated for his mental health problems, he had outbursts of rage, and had an obsession with weapons.

At an Orlando Denny’s restaurant on International Drive, a 40-year-old waitress was killed over the Labor Day weekend when her estranged husband attacked her with a knife. The assailant, chased by customers and employees, escaped by leaping a fence, leaving behind his bloody knife and one of his shoes.

Another school, Delaware State University in Dover, Delaware, was the site of a tragic event in September 2007. A gunman shot two students to death near a college dining hall. The university was locked down and all of its 1,700 students were restricted to their dormitories.

In late fall, near the University of Wisconsin Madison, a gunman attempted to get himself shot and killed by police by reporting a bogus bomb threat to a nearby hospital and firing off his weapon. An officer at the scene described the episode as “a simple case of attempted ‘suicide by cop.’”