Labor Law Center Blog » Blog Archive » Texas Workplace Violence

Texas Workplace Violence

April 8th, 2008 Posted by Amelia

Employers must take measures against workplace violence, as several incidents in 2007 and 2008 demonstrate.

Key elements are training managers and employees to know how to respond to an episode, taking precautions to prevent violence in the first place, and having an emergency plan ready.

In October 5, a retired Alexandria, Louisiana city maintenance worker, John Ashley, 63, was shot and killed by police after a 10-hour standoff with police at a downtown legal office.

Two of Ashley’s 5 victims died, police said. The gunman kept police at bay until officers used explosives to enter the building and kill him. The dead were a postal worker who was delivering mail to the law firm at the time and was killed by Ashley. The other was Joey Giordano, the son of attorney Camille Giordano, Camille Giordano, attorney Sam Giordano, and legal secretary Andrea Fletcher Price were all injured.

The campus of Northern Illinois University (NIU) in DeKalb, Illinois, was the site of a notorious shooting on February 14 of 2008. Steven Kazmierczak killed 6 people and injured 16 before shooting himself. The man was a former NIU graduate student in Criminal Justice who had transferred to the University of Illinois and Champaign Urbana to study social work. He was described as a calm, committed, award-winning student.

A gunman killed 3 city officials and 2 police officers on February 7 at a council meeting in Kirkwood, Missouri, after opening fire. The man also injured the mayor of Kirkwood. The gunman was described as a political activist who had been forcibly ejected from 2 previous council meetings.

In a mall in the Chicago suburb of Tinley Park, a robber killed 5 women during a robbery attempt at a Lane Bryant store. Two of the victims were customers who had walked in on the robbery. The man pretended to be making a delivery, then bound 6 women with duct tape in a back room. When the store manager called 911 the robber became angry and opened fire on all 6 victims, killing 5. Police arrived within a minute, but the robber had fled.

More Workplace Violence

Recent incidents of workplace violence in Illinois and Missouri are the two most recent episodes. Several attacks took place in 2007 as well.

From the tragic massacre at Virginia Tech to a stabbing at an Orlando Denny’s and an attempted “suicide by cop” at the University of Wisconsin Madison 2007 saw its share of workplace violence.

At the Denny’s restaurant on International Drive over Labor Day weekend of 2007, a 40-year-old waitress died of stab wounds inflicted by her estranged husband. Several families were leaving Walt Disney World at the time and witnessed the incident. Both coworkers and customers chased the man, who escaped over a fence, leaving a shoe behind.

The Virginia Tech episode left 32 students and staff dead and 17 more wounded, in the worst case of workplace violence in 2007. The April 16, 2007 tragedy occurred when a young man chained the doors of a campus building shut and began shooting. The young man, Seung-Hui Cho, turned his weapon on himself when police moved in on him. University officials and police were criticized for their response to the shooting.

OSHA, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, said the shooter had shown several warning signs of workplace violence. He had exhibited fits of rage and was not seeking treatment for his history of mental illness. He developed obsessive crushes on women he barely knew, then engaged in stalker-like behavior and jealousy toward them that was completely out of proportion to events. Cho also had an unhealthy interest in weapons.

Two 17-year-old students were shot to death during a tragic event in September at Delaware State University. Following the shooting the campus was put on lockdown and the 1,700 students on campus were confined to their dormitories. Many of the students were contacted by cell phone about the incident and the lockdown.

At the University of Wisconsin, Madison, a man threatened to blow up a nearby hospital and fired several rounds near the building. Police said the bomb threat was false and that he was trying to provoke a shoot-out with officers that would leave him dead.