6
Workplace Violence
Is Your Job a Dead End?
Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord.
—Romans 12:18
G
ian Luigi Ferri, a 55-year-old mortgage broker, entered the lobby
of 101 California Street, a granite and glass skyscraper in downtown
San Francisco. He was carrying a black canvas satchel of the sort that
attorneys use to hold legal documents. Wearing a dark business suit,
he fit in well with the professionally clad attorneys and clients. He took
the elevator to the 34th floor of the 48-story building and got off at the
law firm of Pettit and Martin. In his bag, rather than legal documents,
he carried two legally purchased 9-mm Intratec Tec-9 pistols capable
of firing 50 times without having to be reloaded, a .45-caliber semiautomatic pistol, and hundreds of rounds of ammunition. Ferri ambled
slowly toward a glass-enclosed conference room. Inside, Jody Jones
Sposato, a 30-year-old mother, was the center of a small group of people involved in a deposition for Sposato’s sexual discrimination suit
against her former employer. With her was her lawyer, 35-year-old
Jack Berman, who was advising her while she was being questioned
by Sharon O’Roke, also 35, of Pettit and Martin, on behalf of the
former employer. The deposition was being recorded by 33-year-old
court reporter Deanna Eaves.
Ferri began to spray the conference room with bullets from outside,
shattering the glass. Eaves dove under the table but was struck on the
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right arm. Berman and Sposato were killed outright, and O’Roke received head, chest, and arm wounds. Near the conference room, a legal secretary dialed 911 and then Ferri came face to face with her. She
was frozen in fear, but she saw his face. It was blank. He moved on.
Attorney Brian Berger yelled at the secretary to run, then he ran to
warn another attorney, Allan J. Berk. Ferri shot Berger critically in the
arm and chest. Ferri then went in and killed Berk, a prominent labor
lawyer, at his desk.
Ferri then went down a stairway to the 33rd floor, fatally wounded
law intern David Sutcliffe, and ran into a husband-and-wife pair,
attorneys John and Michelle Scully. The gunman pursued them into
an empty room. John Scully shielded his wife by taking Ferri’s bullets
into his own body. As he was dying, he told his wife how to dial for
help.
Emergency vehicles arrived and SWAT teams entered the tower.
Ferri descended to the 32nd floor, the offices of the Trust Company of
the West. There he killed 64-year-old widowed secretary Shirley
Mooser and 48-year-old investment manager Donald Merrill, mortally
wounded 33-year-old legal secretary Deborah Fogel, and wounded
vice-president Vicky Smith and Pettit and Martin attorney Charles
Ross, both 41. Then his two Tec-9 pistols overheated and jammed.
He headed down the fire stairs and soon found himself trapped between two teams of police. It was just 15 minutes since he had entered
the building. Shoving the third pistol under his chin, Ferri fired a fatal
round. The carnage left nine people dead, including Ferri, and six others wounded.
It was later learned that Gian Luigi Ferri had been a client of the
Pettit and Martin law firm and that this connection constituted the ostensible reason for his deadly rampage in their offices. A letter found
on his body also contained a rant against the U.S. Food and Drug Administration concerning the food additive monosodium glutamate
(MSG).
Workplace Violence
I am a psychiatrist. My job can be very dangerous unless I take certain
precautions, and I try to take them. How about you? Is your job potentially dangerous, and are you vulnerable at the workplace in some
as-yet unexamined way? Most of us spend more time at work than at
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home or anywhere else. We get to know our fellow workers, but oftentimes not well enough.
The National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health has identified workplace homicide as a “serious” public health problem. An average of 1.7 million people were victims of violent crime while working or on duty in the United States, according to a report published
each year from 1993 through 1999 by the Bureau of Justice Statistics.
An estimated 75% of these incidents were simple assaults. An additional 19% were aggravated assaults. For the same period, more than
800 workplace homicides per year occurred. In 2005, assaults and violent acts accounted for 13% of workplace fatalities. Within this category, 9% were homicides.
Although there are many variations, mass murder in the workplace
usually takes one of five forms: 1) a disgruntled employee or former
employee kills or injures other employees, 2) an angry spouse or relative stalks employees at work, 3) violence is committed during a criminal act such as robbery, 4) violence is committed against people in
dangerous jobs, such as law enforcement personnel, and 5) acts of terrorism or hate crimes are carried out, such as the terrorist attacks of
September 11, 2001, against the World Trade Center in New York
and, earlier, the attack by others against Oklahoma City’s Alfred P.
Murrah Federal Building. Workers, customers, and unlucky bystanders are frequently killed or wounded during such outbursts. In any
case, the deaths of perpetrators of such violence are usually swift, either at their own hands or at the hands of law enforcement officials
who kill them to prevent more killings. Very few workplace killers
walk away from their killing grounds.
On a less overtly violent scale, workplace violence can take the
form of sabotage against property or of psychological and sexual harassment of employees. In a survey of 20,314 federal employees, 42%
of the women and 15% of the men reported having been sexually harassed. Although more than 90% of the sexual harassment charges
filed with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC)
have been filed by women, there is an increasing number of charges
being filed by men. Moreover, as more women gain power in the
workplace, it is likely that the reported sexual harassment of men by
women will increase further. Power corrupts, regardless of gender. But
it is the workplace mass murders that have caught the public eye. Because most of us work, we feel threatened by this sort of violence even
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when it is not directed against us. Many people have cause to feel disgruntled because of changes in the workplace due to automation and
bad economic conditions. Old-style family and community cohesiveness, no less than employer-employee good relations and loyalty, have
gone by the board, with deleterious effects. The availability of rapidfire, military-style assault weapons has made it possible for a disgruntled person with a private arsenal to kill a lot of people.
The FBI arbitrarily defines mass murder as murder involving four or
more victims in one location during one event and subdivides the category into classic mass murder and family mass murder. The classic
mass murderer was Charles Whitman, the University of Texas
“Tower Killer” described later in this chapter. Another example is the
killing of 13 students and faculty at Columbine, Colorado, by Eric
Harris and Dylan Klebold before they turned their guns on themselves. In 2007, at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
in Blacksburg, Virginia, student Seung-Hui Cho killed 32 students
and teachers before committing suicide. He became infamous for committing the worst mass shooting by a lone gunman in U.S. history.
Family mass murderers kill four or more family members and may
or may not commit suicide themselves. When suicide occurs, it is classified as a murder-suicide. Without suicide, the murder is classified as
a family mass murder. On November 9, 1971, John List, an insurance
salesman, killed his wife, three children, and mother, then disappeared.
His car was found in an airport parking lot. Seventeen years later, a tip
was received from a viewer who had seen an age-enhanced clay bust
of List on the TV program America’s Most Wanted. List was arrested in
Richmond, Virginia, where he was found to be married and working
as an accountant. More recently, in 1999, Mark Barton, a stock market
day trader in Atlanta, killed his wife, son, and daughter before going
to his former workplace and killing an additional nine people.
There are also spree murderers and serial murderers. Spree murder is
defined as killing at two or more locations with no emotional coolingoff period occurring between the murders. On September 6, 1949,
Howard Unruh moved through his neighborhood as he fired his
handgun, killing 13 people and wounding 3 others in about 20 minutes. His morbid deed has therefore been classified by the FBI as a
spree murder rather than a mass murder. The distinction between the
two seems of interest mainly to experts. More recent examples include
Martin Bryant of Tasmania, Australia, who in the course of several
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101
hours killed 35 people with various automatic weapons in a half-dozen
locations in the township of Port Arthur.
The typical mass murderer is as ordinary as many people’s next
door neighbor, a white male in his late twenties to mid-forties. But he
is atypical in that he is frequently a loner who drifts from job to job,
existing without close family, neighborhood, or community ties.
There are thousands of angry men among us who seek revenge for
real or imagined grievances. They also make threats of wreaking violence, but thankfully there are only a few who turn their anger into actual outbreaks of violence. Yet the number of mass murders is mounting. Two or three of them occur each month.
Public perception has it that something snaps and these persons go
off and kill the nearest people at hand. That does happen, but the majority of mass murders are planned. Moreover, media coverage of any
mass murder is now thought to contribute to the next mass murder—
a predictable clustering phenomenon.
Mass murderers tend to have a lethal combination of paranoia (feelings of persecution) and depression. They feel despondent and hopeless while at the same time they blame others for their plight. Their fantasies tend to be straightforward: revenge against the perceived
persecutors. They do not entertain the intricate, baroque sexual fantasies of the serial sexual murderer. Nonetheless, they do kill, and, beyond the actual body count, there are many physical and psychological
victims of workplace violence. No statistics can capture the immense
psychological harm seared into the minds of survivors of this sort of
violence. In the Pettit and Martin rampage, John Scully died trying to
protect his wife from Ferri’s bullets. The Scullys had been married less
than a year and were very close. Now his wife must live with the terrifying, agonizing memories of his final moments in the forefront of her
mind. Jody Jones Sposato was also killed by Ferri. Her husband
Stephen Sposato told a reporter, “They invited me to go to the coroner’s office [to identify the body of my wife] and my life was shattered.”
Many survivors of workplace violence are scarred by symptoms of
posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), some for many years afterwards.
Terrifying flashbacks that have the clarity of video images, hellish and
sweat-drenched nightmares, numbed feelings, and withdrawal from relationships are some of the symptoms that result from life-threatening
trauma in the workplace. In fact, a psychological study of 36 employees
who were in the building at the time of Ferri’s rampage was conducted
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by a research team from Stanford University School of Medicine. Immediately after the shooting, a wide range of acute stress responses was
noted. Reevaluation 7 to 10 months later revealed that one-third of the
employees who initially met the criteria for an acute stress disorder had
significantly more symptoms of PTSD at follow-up.
Violence against workers has also been charted by occupation,
showing that most of the violence is directed at people who interact
with the public. The top occupations at risk for a range of physical injuries resulting from violence, as reported by the Bureau of Justice Statistics, are, in descending order, recreational workers, bartenders, cab
drivers, retail sales clerks, food service workers, police officers, parking attendants, auto mechanics, security guards, social workers, cashiers, bus drivers, fire fighters, and service station attendants. The rate
of injury for the top-ranked category, recreational workers, was 118.5
per 1,000 persons, whereas social workers, ranked much lower, had a
rate of 8.5 per 1,000 persons. Many injuries and deaths were associated with robberies and attempted robberies.
As compiled from reports of victims, the following are reasons
given by workplace attackers for their violence: irrational behavior,
26%; dissatisfied with service, 19%; interpersonal conflict, 15%; upset
at having been disciplined, 12%; criminal behavior, 10%; personal
problems, 8%, firings or layoffs, 2%; prejudice, 1%; and unknown
causes, 7%. Some of these categories reflect the occasion rather than
the reason for underlying rage to explode. Firearms are the weapons
of choice used in three-quarters of the deaths. Half the deaths occurred
in the southern region of the United States and another quarter in the
West.
Types of violence in the workplace have also been studied. In a
1993 survey conducted by the Society for Human Resource Management, 75% of violent incidents were fistfights, 17% were shootings,
7.5% were stabbings, 6% were rapes or other sexual assaults, and less
than 1% were explosions. Those who are killed are 3.5 times as likely
to be female as male. Homicide is a leading cause of death for women
in the workplace. Even though the leading instrument of death on the
job is firearms, females were six times more likely than males to die of
strangulation. These statistics reflect the fact that women in the workplace are at special risk. Rejection of ardent suitors, or, worse, of workplace harassers, brings with it the increased risk of severe injury or
death to the women at the hands of these men. When romances out-
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side the workplace go awry, the rejected male usually knows where the
woman is employed and generally has ready access to her workplace.
Although the fact has not received much media attention, women who
work in retail settings are at high risk of being injured or murdered at
their jobs. More women than men work in the retail industry, for instance in convenience stores. Alone and unprotected in such establishments, they are particularly vulnerable and at risk for becoming victims of violence.
Murders at the Post Office
In recent years, certain workplaces have become known as increasingly dangerous locations for workers, patrons, and passers-by because of the killings that have occurred there. The most obvious location, perhaps because of the extensive media coverage, has been the
post office. “Going postal” has become a slang phrase for having a psychotic episode and wreaking violence on people in one’s current or
former workplace. There are 40,000 postal service locations and more
than 825,000 postal workers in this country. Dozens of deadly incidents in the past decade have had postal workers or facilities as their
focal points. On the same day, May 6, 1993, in two different locations,
postal workers lashed out. In Dearborn, Michigan, Larry Jason had
been known as a “walking time bomb” who had graphically threatened his supervisors. In San Juan Capistrano, California, Mark Hilburn was fearful of losing his job. Their rampages left four people
dead.
On August 10, 1989, John Merlin Taylor, a model post office employee with 27 years of award-winning, exceptional service, went on a
rampage in Orange Glen, California, that eventually left four dead, including himself and his wife. In May 1989, mailman Alfred Hunter
stole an airplane and strafed the Boston city streets with an AK-47. On
August 20, 1986, Patrick Henry Sherrill showed up at work in Edmond, Oklahoma, in full postal uniform but with three handguns in
his mailbag. He murdered 14 workers and injured even more before
killing himself.
Former workers account for only a small fraction of overall workplace violence, but their rampages can be terrifying. A 35-year-old mail
clerk, Joseph Harris, lost his job in the Ridgewood, New Jersey, post office because he threatened a supervisor. Eighteen months later he went
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to her home and killed her and her fiancée. He then went to the Ridgewood facility and shot dead two mailmen who had just arrived for work.
On November 13, 1991, 37-year-old ex-Marine Thomas McIlvane
found a message from his post office union shop steward on his answering machine, telling him he would not be rehired, that his appeal
for reinstatement at a suburban Detroit post office had been turned
down. He had been fired for insubordination, cursing a supervisor,
fighting with patrons, and for making obscene, threatening remarks to
coworkers as well as to supervisors. For months, McIlvane had threatened that if he was not rehired, he would come back and kill. He had
been heard voicing the threat that his revenge would make the Edmond, Oklahoma, post office massacre look like Disneyland. His supervisors had described McIlvane as a “ticking time bomb.” A former
professional kickboxer who also held a black belt in karate, McIlvane
had been drummed out of the Marine Corps for deliberately crushing
a fellow Marine’s car with a tank.
At the post office, a supervisor had requested protection from McIlvane, but the request was turned down. Coworkers established an escape route that they could use if McIlvane turned up. And turn up he
did, the morning after the answering machine message, arriving at the
Royal Oak Regional Mail Center in Michigan at 8:15 a.m. with a
sawed-off Ruger .22-caliber semiautomatic rifle tucked under his raincoat. He killed four supervisors before turning the gun on himself and
committing suicide.
Why has the postal service experienced so much violence? No one
knows for sure. For one thing, a continuing automation process has
been placing great stress on postal employees, who are hard pressed to
keep up with the pace of the new equipment. Another major part of
the problem seems to come from inadequately careful selection of employees. Lack of tact and management skills among postal supervisors
is another contributing factor. Each year, in the postal service, there
are 150,000 grievance proceedings and 69,000 disciplinary actions in
the army of 825,000 employees. This is a very high index of supervisor-employee difficulties—1 out of every 12 employees is disciplined
annually, and 2 out of every 11 file grievances against their supervisors. On the other hand, a report by the Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention found post offices have a lower homicide rate than
many other industries. Programs aimed at reducing violence in the
postal service have led to fewer violent incidents.
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In media interviews, an alarmingly large number of postal workers
admitted that they strongly identified with the killers in the violent
post office events, stating that they themselves harbored similar revenge impulses but did not act on them. In this instance especially, the
bad men did what the good ones dreamed about doing. The difference
between the two groups depends on many factors—among the significant ones, the degree of depression and paranoia.
Work problems have been common complaints among my patients
over the years. I have listened for countless hours to some of my patients’ exquisitely detailed fantasies of extreme sadistic torture of their
bosses. One of my patients relished her fantasy of beheading the boss’s
children in front of him, boiling their heads, and then forcing the boss
at gunpoint to drink the concoction. As with my other patients who
could examine their fantasies, there was very little likelihood that she
would act on any of her violent urges. This patient was a very highfunctioning, competent executive who was scrupulously law abiding.
Perhaps the ability to fantasize and verbalize terrible violence against
others helps preempt the need to put violent motives into action.
Not So Ivory Tower
The image of the college campus as a sleepy, peaceful refuge from the
world was shattered on August 1, 1966, when Charles Whitman, a
25-year-old architectural engineering student, mounted the 307-foot
clock tower atop the University of Texas. Before leaving home for his
rampage, Whitman had killed his wife and his mother. Atop the tower,
he killed 13 more people by sniper fire and wounded 31 before being
killed himself.
Whitman set the pattern for the next 40 years of campus-related
killings that seem to have increased the risk of both teachers and students being harmed, as in the actions of Gang Lu, a brilliant but disgruntled astrophysicist at the University of Iowa. During a studentfaculty meeting, Lu shot 47-year-old physics professor Christopher K.
Goertz twice in the head, killing him instantly. He then whirled and
killed 27-year-old Linhua Shan, his perceived rival, who had received
a prestigious university award that Lu had coveted. Before Lu was finished, he killed 5 faculty members and seriously wounded another.
Then, his mission completed, Lu removed his heavy coat, folded it
neatly onto a chair, and fired a .38 slug into his own head.
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The cases go on and on, and they involve high schools and grade
schools as well as colleges and universities. Inhabitants of Massachusetts, California, Louisiana, a half-dozen other states, and Montreal,
Canada have all seen such murders and murder-suicides. Marc Lepine
mounted a well-planned aggressive armed assault at the school of engineering (École Polytechnique) at the University of Montreal. Venting
his rage principally against women, he killed or injured 14 people with
a rifle. After a wounded victim cried out for help, Lepine pulled out his
knife and stabbed her repeatedly in the chest until she was dead. He
then put the muzzle of the rifle against his head, said “Oh, shit,” and
shot himself. It was the worst mass murder and hate crime against
women in Canadian history. Lepine left a suicide note that said:
Please note that if I kill myself today 12/06/89 it is not for economic
reasons (because I waited until I used up all my financial means, even
refusing jobs) but for political reasons. Because I decided to send Ad
Patres [meaning gathered to the fathers, or, simply, dead] the feminists
who have always ruined my life. For seven years my life has brought
me no joy, and, being utterly weary of the world, I have decided to
stop those shrews dead in their tracks.
Six months later, Lepine claimed his last victims—Sarto Blais, an
engineer who had been at the same school and who could not rid himself of his memories of the killings of his classmates and friends,
hanged himself. Then, his parents, themselves seeing no reason to go
on living, also committed suicide.
There have been killings at high schools, junior high schools, grade
schools. Incredibly, a loaded revolver was discovered at a church preschool in an affluent Virginia neighborhood.
One of the worst cases is the April 16, 2007, killings at Virginia
Tech in which a 23-year-old loner from South Korea, Seung-Hui Cho,
shot and killed 32 students and faculty, and wounded 17 more, before
killing himself. This has been classified as the worst peacetime shooting in United States history. Later investigation revealed that Cho
had several times earlier been identified as troubled, but had refused
treatment.
Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, the Columbine High School killers,
had planned to set off bombs as well as execute students and faculty
with automatic weapons—to kill hundreds and hundreds of people—
and be remembered as the most prolific mass murderers of all time.
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Fortunately, they did not succeed, but did manage to kill 12 and injure
20 more before placing their guns to their heads.
In all instances in these school shootings, the precise motivations
and mental makeup of the shooters remain elusive. There are some
clues, however. The U.S. Secret Service developed a profile of 41
school shooters in 37 incidents; they found that the most frequently
expressed motive was revenge, and that about three-quarters of the
perpetrators had threatened to commit suicide before their attacks.
The report described the perpetrators as feeling extremely depressed,
with most of them also feeling persecuted and dealing with a significant change in a relationship or a loss in status. These statistics and
motivations are consistent with the conclusions reached in other studies of adolescent mass murderers.
Patients Who Kill
Medical facilities such as doctors’ offices, emergency rooms, regular
wards, nursing homes, and clinics have become increasingly dangerous places for both practitioners and patients because of people intent
on murder in such locations. A deranged white supremacist traveled
from Maryland to Chicago to shoot to death a plastic surgeon in the
doctor’s own office. Jonathan Preston Haynes, age 35, told arresting
officers that he had gone to Chicago and randomly selected his victim
from a phonebook listing for plastic surgeons. He made an appointment with Dr. Martin Sullivan, age 68, then sat quietly in the doctor’s
waiting room until his name was called. Going into the physician’s office, he calmly executed the surgeon, reportedly because Haynes was
angry at people “diluting the Aryan beauty by creating ersatz Aryans.”
Psychiatrists have long known that the most dangerous time is during the first visit with an unknown patient. According to an American
Psychiatric Association Task Force Report, 40% of psychiatrists are assaulted during their careers. Nearly three-fourths of assaults against all
physicians occurred during the first meeting of doctor and patient. At
that time, the extent of the patient’s illness and possible presence of homicidal impulses is unknown to the psychiatrist. The psychiatrist has
not had time to develop a working therapeutic relationship that could
inhibit dangerous acts. It is quite possible for any mental health professional in such a circumstance to become endangered as the instant
object of a disturbed patient’s persecutory delusions. While in train-
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ing, male psychiatrists are often told to wear breakaway, clip-on ties,
so that a patient cannot strangle the doctor with his own tie. They are
also told to take offices that have separate doors for doctor and patient; otherwise, a doctor who sits with the only door at his or her back
may be perceived by the patient as blocking the exit, an avenue the patient might need if he or she fears losing control over violent impulses.
These stratagems are not misplaced. Many mental health professionals have been the victims of workplace violence. One psychiatrist
was very seriously maimed by a letter bomb. Others have been killed.
Psychiatrist Brian Buss, age 37, was working at a state hospital near
Portland, Oregon, when he found it necessary to admit a paranoid
psychiatric employee of the hospital to that same hospital for observation and possible treatment. This patient had previously been in a state
hospital and expressed fears about having to stay in another such hospital. However, the only alternative, the local community hospital, did
not have a psychiatric unit. Buss went into a makeshift seclusion room,
alone, to inform the patient that he would soon be transferred to the
state hospital where he had been treated a decade ago. The patient became enraged and ordered Buss to leave. When Buss refused, the patient picked up a rod lying on the floor and clubbed him to death.
Some time later, when the patient’s psychosis had cleared, he was interviewed and made several safety suggestions for the hospital—for
instance, that the psychiatrist should never have come into the seclusion room alone and that he should have left the room immediately
when the patient had ordered him to do so.
Psychiatrist Michael McCullock, 41, decided to treat a 38-year-old
paranoid schizophrenic man with a long history of violence as an outpatient in his private office in Portland, Oregon. He did so despite evidence that the man had made threats to kill a philosophy professor
while he had been in college and despite the man’s several previous
involuntary hospitalizations. The psychotic patient had developed the
delusion that Dr. McCullock was torturing him with a brain-stimulating machine and that the only way to stop the torture and pain was to
kill the psychiatrist. Barging into Dr. McCullock’s office one day and
pulling a shotgun from under his raincoat, the patient shot McCullock
dead at close range. He then waited calmly for the police. Later, when
interviewed, the patient was without remorse. Because of his delusions, the patient believed that he had been justified in killing his psychiatrist.
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Similarly, Dr. Wayne Fenton, 53, a prominent psychiatrist, associate director of a division of the National Institute of Mental Health,
and an expert on schizophrenia, agreed to do a consultation on a Saturday in his private office with a young man known to be paranoid
and psychotic, who was unaccompanied by his parents. Shortly, police
were notified by the patient’s father that his son had returned from
that appointment acting strangely and with blood on his pants and
shirt. The police went to the office, found that Dr. Fenton had been
murdered. They were soon able to apprehend 19-year-old Vitali Davydov and charge him with the crime.
Today most emergency rooms in hospitals, in addition to handling
emergency cases, also function as outpatient clinics, which treat a variety of chronically ill people. In recent years, disgruntled patients who
have not found relief for their pain, or who think they have been badly
treated, have come back to kill emergency room personnel. That is
why most emergency rooms now have security personnel and equipment to detect the presence of firearms.
Doctors may also be the victims of politically motivated attacks, as
has been made clear by recent violence against abortion clinics and
against doctors who perform abortions. Some antiabortion extremists
have become terrorists willing to kill to prevent women from being
able to have abortions. Michael F. Griffin, age 32, was found guilty of
the first-degree murder of Dr. David Gunn, a physician who performed abortions at Pensacola Women’s Medical Services Clinic. Griffin, an antiabortion zealot, shot Dr. Gunn three times as the physician
arrived for work during a protest. Antiabortion activist Paul Hill shot
and killed Dr. John Britton and his unarmed escort outside The Ladies
Center clinic in Pensacola, Florida. John C. Salvi, age 22, opened fire
at two abortion clinics in Brookline, Massachusetts, killing two women
and wounding five other people. Medical personnel in many abortion
clinics are working under a state of siege.
Hospital Killing Grounds
Finally, hospitals and nursing homes have been used as killing grounds
by murderers who have access to them and their vulnerable patientresidents. Ex-Marine Donald Swango managed to graduate from Southern Illinois School of Medicine with a medical degree, but his fascination
with dying patients was noted. At Ohio State, nurses on the floors that
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Swango worked on as a surgical intern noticed more patients dying than
usual, and one saw Swango give an injection to a patient who soon sickened. He was cleared by an investigation but resigned and became an
EMT in Quincy, Illinois. After paramedics noticed people getting violently ill in the office when he was around, he was arrested in possession
of arsenic and other poisons, convicted, and sentenced to five years in
prison. After his release, he forged documents to reestablish himself in
West Virginia and then, under an alias, in South Dakota. Discovered
there, he found his way to Stony Brook in New York State. In every location, patients died for no apparent reason. Only when a former employer in South Dakota called Stony Brook was he exposed and a warning about him sent to all the teaching hospitals in the United States.
Swango moved to Zimbabwe, where he killed more people but escaped
before being tried. He was on his way to a job in Saudi Arabia when he
chose a flight that gave him a layover in Chicago, where he was arrested.
He pleaded guilty to three killings of patients, and—nearly 20 years after he began to harm patients and coworkers—received a sentence of
life imprisonment without the possibility of parole.
Donald Harvey, a nursing assistant known as the Angel of Death,
may have killed as many as 100 victims in healthcare settings. He
worked as a nursing assistant in various hospitals. He confessed to killing 15 patients at Marymount Hospital in London, Kentucky, and 15
more at the Cincinnati Veterans Administration Medical Center.
While working at Drake Memorial Hospital from 1985 to 1987, when
he was arrested, he allegedly killed 21 additional infirm and chronically ill patients.
Harvey at first claimed that he was committing mercy killings, but
his real motivation came out later as he told how he obtained great satisfaction from being able to fool “know-it-all” doctors who would assume that their patients had died from natural causes. Psychiatrists described Harvey as a compulsive man who murdered because it gave
him a sense of power. He had also killed for revenge after having been
homosexually raped. Harvey was not a subtle mercy killer, as his
methods of murder also revealed. He thrust a straightened-out coat
hanger into the abdomen of a restrained and confused old man, puncturing the man’s bowel and causing him to die of peritonitis two days
later. For others, he cut off the oxygen supply, suffocated them with
plastic bags and pillows, injected syringes full of air, and mixed arsenic
and cyanide in patients’ food.
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Other so-called mercy killings have taken place with some frequency in hospitals, institutions, and nursing homes. Few of these
murders have anything to do with compassion and pity for the victim.
Most echo Harvey’s incentive to kill in order to exercise total power
and control over the victim. Motives of nurse-killers or bedside-killers
have included the thrill of creating medical emergencies, appearing heroic, enjoying watching patients as they die, and putting patients out
of their misery. The most common method of killing is injecting a prescribed drug in amounts that are known to be lethal. Charles Cullen,
a nurse, was charged with the murders of at least 40 seriously ill patients. He injected patients with drugs, mainly digoxin, used in cardiac
care units, ostensibly to end their suffering. Similarly, Harold Shipman, a British physician, was convicted of killing 15 patients, although
a government investigation concluded that he had killed at least 215,
making him the most notorious of all medical serial killers.
Patients in nursing homes are sometimes killed by physical abuse.
It is my belief that some serial killers work in facilities that take care of
the elderly and the very infirm—killers who change jobs frequently
and whose crimes are only discovered in the wake of heightened patient mortality rates that are otherwise inexplicable.
It was not until after the death of Dr. David J. Acer, a dentist practicing in Florida, that the workplace violence he allegedly committed
was discovered. Dr. Acer had died of acquired immunodeficiency
syndrome (AIDS). He had contracted the human immunodeficiency
virus (HIV) years earlier but continued to practice dentistry—and
did not inform his patients of his condition. The first of his patients
to develop AIDS and die was young Kimberly Bergalis. Dr. Acer
himself died before he could be questioned about Kimberly’s treatment. At least five other patients became infected. It was only possible
to test 700 of Dr. Acer’s 2,000 patients for HIV. Questions have been
raised about whether Dr. Acer might have deliberately infected his
patients. His former lover has been quoted as saying that Dr. Acer did
do so in an attempt to “prove” that AIDS was not just a disease limited to the population of homosexuals. If Dr. Acer did deliberately
transmit the fatal disease to his patients, he would have to be considered a serial murderer. It may be years before the full extent of the
damage he allegedly wrought can be tallied. I say allegedly because a
new scientific study may cast doubt on the original findings that implicated Dr. Acer.
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Vigilante Justice in the Courts
As the introductory vignette about Gian Luigi Ferri’s murderous assault on the law firm of Pettit and Martin makes clear, lawyers, law
firms, and the courts are fast becoming targets of violence. Bad feelings toward lawyers and the court system are today epidemic and are
reflected in the current abundance of uncomplimentary jokes about
lawyers. Ferri was reported to have laughed himself to tears, a few
weeks before the massacre, when told the following joke: “If you were
locked into a room with Saddam Hussein, the Ayatollah Khomeini,
and a lawyer, and you had a gun with two bullets in it, who would you
shoot? The lawyer—twice.”
Lawyers are advocates who work within an adversarial system,
one that leads directly to the polarization of positions and to the evocation of strong emotions. The courts deal with difficult, contentious,
and momentous decisions, sometimes of life and death; stresses on
litigants, lawyers, judges, and juries can be extremely high. Letter
bombs have been sent to lawyers and judges, injuring some recipients,
killing others. Gun-wielding litigants seeking their own immediate
brand of justice have killed several lawyers and judges. In one notable
rampage, Kenneth Baumrock brought two handguns into a divorce
hearing in a Clayton, Missouri, courtroom and killed his wife and
wounded four court officials. On the same day in Grand Forks, South
Dakota, a similar event occurred in a family court, in which a gunman
severely wounded the family court judge.
Lawyers can turn lethal as well. Attorney George Lott began a
shooting rampage in a court, killing a defense lawyer and a prosecutor,
and injuring two appeals judges. Lott’s complaint was that a family
court justice had improperly favored his former wife in a child custody
hearing. Violent outcomes are not unusual in divorce and custody actions because the litigation process fans intense hatreds.
Death in Familiar Places
Restaurants and financial institutions are increasingly becoming venues
for violence as a result of revenge motives acted out in locations where
many people are likely to be present. Only a few of the locations have
been specifically connected to the perpetrators’ grudges against society.
In one of the most awful incidents, George Hennard crashed his truck
through the front window of Luby’s Cafeteria in Killeen, Texas, injur-
Workplace Violence: Is Your Job a Dead End?
113
ing several customers in his path. Hennard then jumped out of the truck
with a gun in his hand and systematically killed 23 lunch customers and
employees. Hennard killed mostly women, especially those who had
made eye contact with him. He wounded 22 others and then took his
own life. It was the nation’s worst firearms massacre. Hennard had fired
a total of 96 bullets in a few minutes. Of the 136 survivors who were
psychologically examined after the rampage, 20% of the men and 36%
of the women were found to have posttraumatic stress disorder.
Hennard had no real connection with Luby’s Cafeteria, but many
other mass killers have targeted restaurants because they once worked
in those particular locations or because they believed they had been
insulted there. There is a high turnover of employees in the restaurant
industry, and often robberies are executed by former employees of a
restaurant who are familiar with its operation. In Queens, New York,
two men entered a Wendy’s restaurant, displayed their guns, took 7
employees, 3 of them known to one perpetrator, into a basement
freezer, and shot them in order to rob the eatery of $3,200. Two of the
7 who were shot survived and identified the killers.
Workers at financial institutions are also at risk during robberies.
Furthermore, they are targets for disgruntled employees and customers, especially during hard financial times. A disgruntled former employee of the Firemen’s Fund, 33-year-old Paul Calden, went to the Island Center Building in Tampa, Florida, killed three of the Fund’s
supervisors while they were eating lunch, and injured two women. He
then drove away and was found later in his car, 12 miles from the site,
dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. It was learned that he had been
dismissed from a job with Firemen’s Fund 8 months earlier and that
he had been mentally disturbed, troubled by a preoccupation with extraterrestrial contacts.
The General Motors Acceptance Corporation office in Jacksonville,
Florida, repossessed a two-year-old Pontiac Grand Am from James Edward Pough, 42, a few months after Pough’s wife had left him. He could
not pay the debt of $6,394 out of his low hourly laborer’s wages. Six
months later, Pough walked into the office, killed eight people, wounded
four others, then ended his own life with a .38-caliber revolver.
A disgruntled, disabled electrician named Jim H. Forrester drove his
Chevrolet Suburban into the office of the State Industrial Insurance
System in Las Vegas and went on a shooting rampage through the first
floor of the building. In this incident, although no one was killed, about
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25 employees later filed claims for stress and for injuries, and many of
the 400 employees later received individual and group therapy.
The annals of workplace killers are heavily weighted toward lowerrank former employees, but one of the first such killers to come to the
public’s attention was a former IBM executive and engineer, Edward
Thomas Mann. He had resigned, rather than be fired, after his performance ratings had slipped. Mann charged that he was a victim of racial discrimination. He traded in his white shirt and other appurtenances of IBM life and donned an olive-drab fatigue jacket and ski
mask. Then, in pseudocommando style, Mann crashed his bronze
Lincoln Continental into the lobby of an IBM office building in Rockville, Maryland. He leaped out of the car with two loaded rifles, a shotgun, and a pistol, using these to kill two people and wound seven more
in a long siege, at the end of which he surrendered to police. Two years
later, in prison, he hanged himself.
Most perpetrators of workplace violence are white men, but occasionally they are women. In every setting except where women are
acutely psychotic, men have a higher incidence of violent behavior.
Gail Levine, age 62, was convicted of sabotage against the Pepsi-Cola
company by a federal jury in Denver. She had placed a syringe in a
Diet Pepsi can during the tampering scare—as delayed vengeance
against the company that had fired her husband 18 years earlier. In a
rare case of workplace violence perpetrated by a woman, 30-year-old
industrial engineer Elizabeth A. Teague attempted to set the Eveready
Battery plant in Bennington, Vermont, on fire by detonating several
homemade black powder and gasoline bombs. Before the bombs went
off, she shot and killed the plant manager and wounded two coworkers at the plant where she had worked. Captured, she complained to
the FBI of racial harassment at Eveready, that her home phone had
been tapped by the company, and that coworkers had stolen and sold
company secrets. Police also found at her home some media accounts
that had fueled her vengeful feelings: stories about the Luby’s Cafeteria massacre and about Anita Hill’s sexual harassment charges against
Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas.
A Behavioral Profile of the Workplace Killer
There are millions of unhappy workers in the workplace, but only a
few of them reach the point of acting out their unhappiness in violence
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115
against others. Although the behavioral characteristics of the person
who commits workplace mayhem is rather stereotypical, the psychological motivation can be extremely complex and, often, undiscoverable. Typically, the worker is disgruntled and has troubled work relationships, but this is not enough to trigger violence. In general,
ordinary occupational unhappiness does not play a significant part in
the motivation of workplace violence, although it is often cited as a
“cause.” Situations, context, genetic makeup, psychological development, physical and mental disorders, cultural and social influences,
and many other factors enter into the lethal mix. Even trained professionals are frequently unable to detect a potential murderer. John Merlin Taylor, whose career in the postal service had lasted 27 years, had
paranoid ideas about being set up to take a fall. He imagined that he
would find money on his route and that this would be used as a way
to discipline or fire him. Such a delusion did not, in itself, signal the
murderous violence he later wreaked. Taylor gave no warning that he
would explode.
Profiling of potential perpetrators of workplace violence is an inexact exercise; it should be viewed as a rough assessment tool that can
raise the consciousness of management personnel toward the possible
prevention of outbreaks of violence in their workplaces.
The following 10-dimensional behavioral profile (summarized in
Table 6–1) characterizes many perpetrators of workplace violence:
TABLE 6–1.
A behavioral profile of the workplace killer
1. Disgruntled
2. Disturbed
3. Determined
4. Deviant
5. Distant
6. Dangerous
7. Disrupted relationships
8. Dyscontrol
9. Drugs and alcohol
10. Down and out
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1. Disgruntled
Virtually all persons who commit workplace violence have major, unrequited grievances against their employers. Often, the employee feels
he or she has been “screwed over,” used, abused, and discarded like a
piece of trash. Frequent absences occur. Usually, disciplinary actions
have been taken against the employee in the past. A documented
record of escalating labor-management disputes often is found after a
violent incident has occurred. Complaints of work stress commonly
precede the outbreak of violence. Disgruntled employees or exemployees whose lives are consumed by pursuing their grievances can
turn lethal. For example, James Huberty was described as a bitter
man. A 42-year-old unemployed security guard, Huberty lost his job
after 13 years of hard work when his employers shut down their plant.
He was emotionally cold and had a violent temper; he struck his children and engaged in physical fights with his wife. He was fascinated
with weapons, mercenary literature, and army clothing. On July 18,
1984, at 4 p.m., Huberty dressed in camouflage clothing, armed himself, and told his wife, “I’m going hunting humans!” He entered the
nearest McDonald’s and sprayed the restaurant with an Uzi semiautomatic weapon and a 12-gauge shotgun. Twenty-one people were killed
and 15 were wounded. Huberty was shot through the heart by a
SWAT team. A number of mass murderers attack in pseudocommando style. Their interest in weapons, mercenary magazines, and the
military are often an attempt to cover up deep feelings of inadequacy,
as well as to express intense bitterness and hatred toward others and
themselves, given that they often also die.
2. Disturbed
Many perpetrators of workplace violence experience some sort of
mental disturbance. Some have been diagnosed; others commit their
violence and are judged as disordered well after the fact. The patient
who killed psychiatrist Wayne S. Fenton was reported to be a paranoid
psychotic. Edward Mann, who rammed his car into the IBM offices
and was captured after killing two people, was later diagnosed for the
first time as suffering from major depression and a delusional disorder.
Many workplace killers commit suicide after their rampages and can
only be diagnosed in retrospect, and even then without great certainty.
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One particular form of mental disorder, erotomania, was implicated
in a case in California’s Silicon Valley. In erotomania, the person feels
absolutely convinced that the object of his or her affections feels the
same way, even if there is evidence to the contrary. Software engineer
Richard Farley met Laura Black, an electrical engineer, at the defense
contractor ESL, Inc. When she spurned his advances, he stalked her.
Four years after Farley had met Black, he stormed ESL, killed seven
employees, and gravely wounded Black. Farley wanted to spill his
blood on Laura Black so she would never forget him. From prison,
Farley continued to write to Black as she lay in a hospital bed with her
survival in doubt. Even though his violence had been acted out, his
delusion and disorder continued.
The vast majority of people who are mentally disturbed are no
more violent than the population in general. There is no research support for the strong connection the public assumes exists between mental disorder and violence. In fact, a previous history of violence and
current alcohol and drug abuse are much more accurate indicators of
the risk of violence. Mental disorder represents only a modest risk of
violence compared with other risk factors such as male gender, young
age, and lower socioeconomic status. Mental disorders, however, can
interfere with work performance. A vicious cycle may develop in
which declining performance brings managerial criticism, which produces further anger and deterioration in work. The worker’s mental
disturbance is overlooked, and an opportunity to intervene therapeutically is lost. When mentally disturbed workers are subjected to these
downward cyclical stresses, they may be more likely to become violent. Prior brain injuries, posttraumatic stress disorder, depression,
mania, substance abuse, personality disorders, chronic pain—any of
these, or a combination of them, may, but not necessarily do, form the
backdrop for violence. When Texas tower killer Charles Whitman
was autopsied, he was found to have had a brain tumor the size of a
pecan. The pathologist was uncertain of the role that tumor might
have played in Whitman’s murderous rampage, but it was learned that
Whitman had complained of severe headaches.
3. Determined
Frequently, among survivors of workplace violence, one hears the description of the killer as acting like an automaton—mechanically,
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coldly, and emotionlessly going about his killing. Gian Luigi Ferri was
described as displaying a blank expression while murdering people at
the law firm of Pettit and Martin. This observation is counterintuitive,
because we would expect peak expressions of strong emotion during
the act of killing, such as hate and rage.
It is my impression that many workplace killers commit violence in
a mentally-split state. Most workplace killings are planned. Once a
plan is hatched, the person is determined to see it through. Perpetrators generally are familiar with weapons, have a military background,
and attack the workplace in a pseudocommando fashion. Much like
men preparing to go into battle, they are determined and prepare
themselves mentally. Part of that preparation is to consciously split off
thoughts and feelings that might produce fear or otherwise interfere
with the mission.
4. Deviant
The thinking of persons who ultimately explode into violent acts is
usually quite different from that of most people. It is odd and extreme.
Although such thinking may result from an overt mental disorder, it
may also be a manifestation of an eccentric and deviant personality.
For instance, the Canadian killer Marc Lepine saw women as the
source of all his troubles and wrote that “feminists have always had a
talent for enraging me.” Low self-esteem and blaming others for one’s
problems dominate the thoughts of many persons who commit workplace violence. This is deviant thinking, no less so than the thoughts
of the white supremacist who killed a plastic surgeon for creating “ersatz Aryans,” or Gian Luigi Ferri’s invectives against the Food and
Drug Administration concerning the food additive MSG. Such individuals often have an arsenal of weapons stashed at home, for defense
against the dangers they perceive based on their crank conspiratorial
theories.
5. Distant
With a few rare exceptions, workplace killers are loners. Their lack of
meaningful contact with other human beings is almost always a symptom of underlying mental and emotional difficulties. Moreover, the
scarcity of human contact removes from these loners a potentially critical brake on their aberrant thinking and behavior. People who are reg-
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119
ularly in touch with others are more likely to check their thoughts and
perceptions with them and to use the feedback to keep themselves
within the bounds of normality. Those who are out of touch with people are more likely to become even further out of touch.
6. Dangerous
Like rattlesnakes, people who commit workplace violence usually give
warning: they communicate their threats, either overtly or covertly.
They do so regularly, over time, escalating the warnings to the point
that when the carnage erupts, few who knew them are surprised by it.
Potential workplace killers often are fascinated by firearms. Many of
them have had military training, or own firearms and are known to be
proficient in their use. Some have a history of prior violence that is
contained in their criminal or military records. Thomas McIlvane,
who killed four fellow postal workers, had been thrown out of the Marine Corps for running over a fellow Marine’s car with a tank. The
best predictor of future violence is past violence.
7. Disrupted Relationships
Most workplace killers are alienated from their families. Many are divorced. Few have any meaningful relationships. The smoldering rage
and hatred resulting from wrecked marital and familial relations can
erupt into violence in another arena: the workplace. James Edward
Pough’s wife walked out of their marriage a few months before his car
was repossessed by General Motors Acceptance Corporation. He later
went on a rampage against the offices of the financing agency, murdering eight employees and a patron.
8. Dyscontrol
Temper tantrums, violent outbursts, and run-ins with the law are commonly found in the background of some perpetrators of workplace violence. The ex-Marine McIlvane had been disciplined for fighting
with postal patrons and for cursing out a supervisor. In such men, the
ability to control their violent outbursts is clearly deficient. They seek
to resolve conflicts through actions, not through words. And neurological disorders or brain injuries can loosen whatever control they do
have. The beginning of loss of control may be signaled by the perpetrator who speaks louder than usual, is easily startled, and becomes increasingly impatient and irritable.
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9. Drugs and Alcohol
The use and abuse of drugs and alcohol are well known disinhibitors
of violent impulses. Like brain injuries or neurological disorders, they
loosen control over violent propensities that the individual may have,
leading to outbursts of uncontrollable behavior. Generally, too, people who abuse such substances are found to have underlying personality disorders. Individuals with borderline and antisocial personalities are capable of committing violent acts, and are rendered more so
by using drugs and alcohol. Postal worker John Taylor’s alcohol consumption was known to have increased before his rampage. It likely
fueled his unfounded suspicions that he was going to be set up and
made to appear as though he was unlawfully accepting money on his
mail route.
A small subset of workplace killings are unplanned. Some individuals, intoxicated on drugs, commit murders outside of work and then
go to the workplace and kill again. Ramon Salcido stayed out much of
one night drinking and taking drugs. Early the next morning, he took
his daughters, ages 1, 2, and 4, to a county dump and cut their throats.
Somehow, the youngest child survived. Salcido then drove to his inlaws’ house, where he killed his mother-in-law and her two children.
He returned home and killed his wife. Salcido then drove to the winery in Sonoma, California, where he worked. There he killed one employee and wounded another.
10. Down and Out
Employees who turn violent in the workplace are at the end of their
emotional, personal, and financial ropes. Consumed with rage, they
feel they have nothing to lose by going on a rampage. They see this as
a final opportunity to turn the tables on coworkers and superiors who
had once appeared to them invulnerable and to force these tormentors
to experience vulnerability. Most workplace killers are in their thirties
or forties and have failed to meet their occupational goals. Also, over
the course of their working years they have accumulated personal and
job setbacks to the point that they feel they are at a dead end. Joseph
Wesbecker, described in the next section, fit this description. It takes
time, augmented by bad experiences, to make a workplace killer.
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Three Life and Death Histories
In the backgrounds of Gian Luigi Ferri, Joseph Wesbecker, and Patrick
Henry Sherrill, many of the behavioral aspects of the workplace killer
listed in Table 6–1 can be observed.
When Ferri’s carnage at Pettit and Martin was over, his ex-wife
could not believe that her former husband could have been the perpetrator because “the man I married hated violence.” Nor could one of
Ferri’s former assistants at his failed mortgage company, who said,
“You don’t expect that from someone you know, no matter how lonely
and sad and miserable he is.”
Ferri immigrated to the United States in 1964. He studied biology
and psychology at the University of California at Santa Cruz, from
which he received a bachelor’s degree. Thereafter, he worked as a mental health counselor for the Marin County Department of Health and
Human Services. He married and divorced quickly. After his divorce,
Ferri did volunteer work for the televangelist Reverend Terry ColeWhittaker, a former Mrs. California. He adopted her slogan, “Prosperity, Your Divine Right,” but prosperity did not shine on him. He was
involved in a failed Midwestern trailer park venture and got legal counsel from Pettit and Martin. Not satisfied with their work, he eventually
turned to another law firm and won a million-dollar settlement.
Ferri tried other ventures, all of which went under. He slid into financial decline. At work in his own firm, he displayed an explosive
temper. His former assistant later noted that Ferri did not know such
basic things as the procedure for verifying bank deposits. Ferri found
himself unable to pay the rent on his one-bedroom apartment, where
he lived alone. He received a notice that gave him 2 weeks to pay the
money he owed or be evicted.
Although he had won a million dollars in his lawsuit, Ferri continued to harbor resentment against the legal system. It was that resentment that he focused on Pettit and Martin. When his rampage was
over, a four-page letter was found on his body. Part of it said, “I spent
the last 13 years trying to find legal recourse and to get back on my
feet, only to find a wall of silence and corruption from the legal community.” He also blamed the food additive MSG for having nearly
killed him on three occasions. Later, a videotape was found that
showed him, weeks before the carnage, taking target practice in the
Mojave desert.
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Joseph Wesbecker, unlike Ferri, had been previously known as a violent person. When the emotionally disabled employee showed up unexpectedly at the Standard Gravure Corporation in Louisville, Kentucky,
his recent history of violent tendencies and mental disturbances was well
known to management. For the past 13 months he had been considered
disabled and was on disability pay at 60% of his annual salary.
Wesbecker had begun working for Standard Gravure 20 years earlier. In the company, which prints Sunday supplements and inserts for
newspapers, he had been very well liked by coworkers. However, his
“nice-guy” image had begun to change with the onset of emotional
problems and a divorce. Coworkers became worried when he began
to read Soldier of Fortune magazine and when he let them know he had
ordered through the mail an Uzi semiautomatic weapon.
Wesbecker went to management and requested a less demanding position because of his mental and emotional troubles. He became very agitated because he had been assigned to work on equipment that caused
him extreme stress. Wesbecker believed that fumes from a chemical
used in the printing plant were causing his physical ailments. A doctor’s
report supported the request, and although Standard Gravure rejected
it, the company did put him on disability. Wesbecker felt that the employer had inflicted a gross injustice upon him, considering his long
years of service. Coworkers noted that his emotional problems seemed
to get worse after that happened. Wesbecker clashed with management
and openly complained to his union and to coworkers that he was being
treated unfairly. Union officials learned from him that he was bitter toward the owner and CEO of Standard Gravure, as well as toward certain supervisors in the pressroom. He was worried that his disability
benefits would end and that he would be left with nothing.
Wesbecker tried to commit suicide three times, and was, in the
opinion of coworkers, becoming more paranoid each day. He was taking the antidepressant medication Prozac (fluoxetine). During the year
he was on disability, Wesbecker made threats that he would get even
with Standard Gravure. So it was no surprise to some coworkers when
one morning he entered the plant carrying an AK-47 semiautomatic
assault rifle, two MAC 11 semiautomatic pistols, a 9-mm semiautomatic pistol, and a .38-caliber revolver with assorted ammunition
and began shooting. Within a few minutes, he had killed 8 people,
wounded 14 others, and taken his own life. In the lawsuit that followed, a jury found that Prozac did not cause the violence.
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Patrick Henry Sherrill was a 44-year-old part-time mailman in Edmond, Oklahoma. He had held his job for only 16 months, and during
that time he had been suspended twice, once for failing to deliver mail
and being rude to patrons, and a second time for spraying a dog with
Mace. Coworkers thought him a total incompetent, unable to even
find the local Wal-Mart. In fact, he was a strange and lonely man. He
had no personal ties. He had never married. After his mother died, he
had lived practically as a recluse in her house. As though to underscore his solitariness, he rode around Edmond, alone, on a bicycle
built for two. He was viewed by coworkers as a very angry, surly person, whose best mood still revealed a dark sullenness. Neighbors reported him to the police for peeking in their windows and for spying
on them with a telescope. Later on, a friend from his high school days
would recall that Sherrill had confided to him a deep fear of becoming
mentally ill, as his father had done in middle age. Sherrill was also
overly sensitive about his premature baldness. He had a shooting
range in his home. His interests were limited to the military, pornography, and his ham-radio hobby.
An ex-Marine, Sherrill was an expert marksman, with an excellent
record as a member of the local National Guard marksmanship team.
He boasted of having been in Vietnam, although in actuality he had
never left Camp Lejeune, North Carolina during his tour of duty. He
had received an honorable discharge from the Marines. Sherrill spent
the next 20 years drifting from job to job, never spending more than
9 or 10 months at any of them, before being hired at the Edmond post
office. At home he kept military uniforms, marksmanship medals, Soldier of Fortune magazines, and a pamphlet entitled, “Dying: The Greatest Adventure of My Life—A Family Doctor Tells His Story.”
On the day that Sherrill was rebuked at the post office for poor performance, he left in a rage. The next morning at 6:30 A.M., he clocked
in, then drew out of his mailbag two .45-caliber automatic pistols and
100 rounds of ammunition that he had signed out from the National
Guard’s armory. Within 15 minutes, he had shot to death 14 postal
workers and injured 6 others before killing himself.
Workplace Violence: Causes or Triggers?
The availability of sophisticated, rapid-firing guns has been suggested
as one major cause of workplace violence because these weapons per-
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mit the killing of large numbers of people in a short period of time, as
occurred at Columbine and Virginia Tech. However, practiced marksmen such as Gang Lu can kill people as quickly and efficiently with
single-shot weapons as George Hennard did with his semiautomatics
at Luby’s Cafeteria. Forensic psychiatrist Park Elliot Dietz believes
that the problem is not guns but movies that “star” guns. His message
is that guns do not kill but television and movies do. Mass murderers,
he believes, take their inspiration from the mass media. Unlike serial
killers, who elaborate their own deviant fantasies and carry them out,
mass murderers do not have much imagination. In the instance of
workplace killers, life imitates entertainment.
Before going on his rampage, Gang Lu left a typed statement for
the media to find and print. It read, in part,
My favorite movies include No Way Out, Die Hard, Indiana Jones, and
Clint Eastwood’s movies where a single cowboy fights against a group
of incorporated bad guys who pick on little guys at their will or cover
up each other’s ass. I believe in the right of people to own firearms….
Even today, privately owned guns are the only practical way for individuals/minority to protect themselves against the oppression from
the evil organizations/majority who actually control the government
and legal system. Private guns make every person equal…. They also
make it possible for an individual to fight against a conspired/incorporated organization such as Mafia or Dirty University officials.
Violent movies and television programs may contribute to the violence potential of certain children. The reality of murder scenes—the
terrible carnage, the awful suffering, the hideous aftermath for survivors and families of victims—is not and cannot be realistically portrayed by the entertainment media. Thus, a vital feedback mechanism
to inhibit aggression is absent in dramatizations of violent acts. Individuals particularly at risk of being overly influenced by media representations of violence are those who have been abused physically and
psychologically. They have felt helpless, terrorized, and angry as a result of their abuse. By identifying with the perpetrators of violence,
they are able to temporarily ease their sense of terrifying vulnerability.
They replay such depictions over and over because they have been
traumatized. After chronic exposure to violent programs, identification with violent protagonists can become an entrenched defense
against their own chronic fears and feelings of helplessness. Because
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all children must deal in varying degrees with feelings of fear, powerlessness, and dependency, no child is really immune from the adverse
influences of violence as portrayed in the media.
More than 2,000 studies of the popular media and violent acts
show a correlation, if not an absolute causal linkage, between television violence and aggression. I have no doubt that what we put into
our minds strongly influences what comes out. But exclusive focus on
popular media as the cause of upsurging violence in America ignores
other important factors. Changing parenting styles that permit children to watch violent programs, the great increase in divorce rates that
produce more single-parent households, escalating drug and alcohol
use, the availability of guns, the collapse of urban communities, child
abuse, and domestic violence—to name just a few—are other important contributors to violence.
Stanton E. Samenow, a clinical psychologist and the author of Inside
the Criminal Mind, holds that television never made a criminal out of
anyone. He thinks that emotional violence is rooted in the American
tradition of personal liberty and individualism. It is this ethic that gives
to a small group of people with deviant worldviews the freedom to violently act out their visions. Samenow cites the observation that these
individuals are incapable of recognizing they are the agents of their
own problems. They are unable to understand what Shakespeare’s
Brutus was told in Julius Caesar: “The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our
stars, but in ourselves, that we are underlings.”
Robert K. Ressler, former FBI agent and head of the consulting
firm Forensic Behavioral Services, observes that 40 years ago, when
people reached their boiling point, they had a nervous breakdown. Today, the aggrieved individual may pick up a weapon and “get even.”
On a different scale, I have treated patients who have destroyed
multiple relationships because of an inability to tolerate their feelings
of self-hate without projecting them onto others. It is very difficult for
many of these patients to hold such feelings long enough to be able to
examine them in therapy.
Unfortunately, the tendency to direct violence toward others is being facilitated by the availability of firepower capable of carrying out
such actions on a mass scale. Roger Depue, former head of the FBI’s
Behavioral Science Unit, notes that for years many commentators
have been telling the public that the problems of individuals are caused
by society. This, in effect, produces for certain individuals an excuse
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and a rationale for attacking society. Some perpetrators are quite open
in stating that they want to strike back and to hurt as many people as
they can, no matter who those people are. John Douglas, the former
Unit Chief of the FBI’s Behavioral Science Investigative Support Unit,
states that violent individuals, having failed in their lives, take their
own lives after a murderous incident (or have others kill them) because they cannot face the likelihood of being convicted and going to
jail—of failing again.
Forensic psychiatrist Park Elliot Dietz has learned through interviews that killing does not exorcise the killer’s psychological demons.
He states that “those who kill out of paranoia are shocked to learn that
killing does not relieve their symptoms.” He believes wider circulation
given to this notion may deter potential copycat killers.
Studies show that individuals who have been laid off, rather than
fired, display a six to seven times higher level of violence against others, which is defined as inflicting harm requiring medical attention or
producing loss of functioning for one or more days. The same six- to
sevenfold increase also shows up in the consumption of alcohol after
being laid off. The statistics are about the same for women as for men.
Work, Love, and Hate
Over a century ago, Freud observed that work and love give essential
meaning to our lives. Satisfying work provides stability, direction, security, a sense of achievement and self-worth, a feeling of belonging,
camaraderie, and, of course, a source of income. Although many people love their work, many others, more accurately, love work, though
not necessarily their own jobs. When someone loses a job, it can be a
severe blow to the psyche. For most individuals, losing a job is a traumatic event, but one that they eventually accept and resolve by going
forward. For a small minority, the loss of a job can be a death sentence.
Some people’s entire identity and sense of worth are inextricably
tied up with their jobs. The term workaholic is often used to describe
people who live to work, rather than work to live. It is such people who
are hit hardest by the loss of a job. It becomes a significant failure in life
rather than a traumatic but survivable event, one that may be beyond
the individual’s control. People who live to work can become totally
devastated by the loss of their job. They can become psychologically
ill, possibly because so much emphasis has been placed on work that
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127
relationships and resources that could sustain them through a crisis
have not been developed. If there are other negative factors operating
in their lives—divorce, financial difficulties, health problems, the lack
of personal support, or failures in other venues—the loss of a job combined with other setbacks can further destabilize them mentally.
Particularly if the loss of the job is seen as abusive or unfair, some
manifestation of rage, embitterment, and a desire for revenge may begin to surface in the individual. When companies treat their employees
as disposable machine parts, this attitude may contribute to a discharged worker’s feelings of bitterness. Automation itself, which replaces human beings with machines, also engenders feelings of worthlessness in people who are displaced. These factors combined with
corporate downsizing, increased stress at work, and the heightened
competition for fewer available jobs all promote anger and violence,
particularly in susceptible individuals. And among people who have
recently been laid off, as we have seen, alcohol and other drugs can
lower resistance to acting out violently. In the past, dedicated workers
enjoyed job security and the esteem of their employers. These circumstances are rapidly vanishing, and workplace violence may be one unintended result.
For some people, the loss of a job may be a blow that reverberates
with some hidden vulnerability rooted in their past. It may trigger an
overwhelming rage that seems out of proportion to the immediate loss
they have experienced. Such persons look into the abyss and consider
violence. “I’ll show you that you can’t do this to me and get away with
it,” they think; they conceive violence as a way of restoring their selfesteem. As their vengeful, bitter, envious thoughts continue spiraling
downward, they may think, “I can make the life of others a failure, and
at the same time nullify my pain and failure, by snuffing out their lives.
Why should other people go on having what they want and enjoying
themselves, when I can’t?” They then decide that if they are going to
die—and most decide that they will not survive their rampages—they
will not die alone. Some killers may kill familiar coworkers for “companionship.”
These individuals may also contemplate the notion that after they
are done, the media will report what has happened to millions upon
millions of people throughout the world. Their name will become a
household word for a few minutes. Even a few moments of notoriety
are acceptable, so long as their personal psychodrama hits the world
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stage. They may decide to leave a suicide note so that the world will
understand their “just cause.” Whereas most people die quietly and
unnoticed, perpetrators of workplace violence will leave this world in
a blaze of horror, even though killing innocent people is the last, and
the most pathetic, refuge of the defeated. And so, psychologically armored, they gather their weapons and go to wreak vengeance on the
world and on themselves. In most incidents, these individuals appear
to be calmly going about their gruesome task. And although these perpetrators may be in a seeming dissociated mental state, their methodical, calculated, cold-blooded killing spree is usually the result of deliberate, covert planning.
If workplace violence often is a staged suicide using the murders as
a prop, there are plenty of disgruntled and disordered employees who
commit suicide without killing anyone else. Some work-related suicides do take place on the job, but most—as in police suicides—take
place outside the workplace and principally at home, even though the
acts are clearly interwoven with the suicide victim’s work. Policemen
see the unabated dark side of life, often developing psychological disorders such as major depression and posttraumatic stress disorder,
which can sometimes prove fatal.
When a troubled worker displaces his or her violence to a nonwork setting, that is known as “silent workplace violence.” More often
than not, this silent violence does not emerge as suicide, but is directed
into physical and psychological abuse of the worker’s family.
Preventing the Unpredictable:
Listening for the Snake’s Rattle
In the wake of one of these terrible incidents of workplace violence,
people often say that the supervisors should have known it was going
to occur because warning signs were clearly present. It is true that
there usually are warning signs displayed. As with rattlesnakes, most
people who commit workplace violence emit sounds of warning and
distress before they strike. But the predictive “signal” for violence is
often of low fidelity, and it is further degraded by the background
noise of undecipherable motivational and situational factors that lead
to garbled messages and error. For example, John Taylor, the mailman
who thought he was being “set up,” told managers about his fear, but
he was not reassured by their denials. Taylor’s paranoia was a clear
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129
signal that he was in mental trouble, but by itself it was not enough to
warn that he was at high risk for violence. He displayed other signals
to friends: some knew or suspected that he was drinking more alcohol
in the weeks before the event than he had done before. Alcohol abuse
is also a warning sign, for excess drinking can spark a mental disorder
or be a symptom of a developing mental crisis. There was also a third
signal that few knew about: Taylor was having trouble at home with
an unemployed 22-year-old stepson. These signals of potential violence were all important; yet none of them, alone or together, including Taylor’s growing paranoia, could be said to have predicted the
killings, even in hindsight. It is likely, though, that psychiatric examination of Taylor before the incident might have provided an opportunity for intervention and treatment, thereby possibly preventing the
outbreak of violence.
The following are some guidelines for the prevention of workplace
violence by employees or former employees:
• Conduct an initial screening of job applicants to exclude violent or
seriously dysfunctional people. Those who are potentially violent
usually have prior histories of making threats or acting in a violent
manner.
• Foster a supportive work environment.
• Make conflict resolution possible by promoting team-building and
negotiation skills.
• Post a clear, written policy against sexual or any other form of
harassment.
• Provide fair and reasonable grievance and review procedures.
• Both management and other employees should identify, as early as
possible, those persons who may be at risk for violence. Most potential perpetrators make threats before they explode. Every such
threat must be taken seriously and must be seen as a reason for intervention. Part of the process must be to allow the person making
the threats to fully ventilate his or her feelings to a mental health
professional. That professional must be willing to listen in a nonjudgmental way to the person’s full story in order to effectively diffuse potential violence.
• Provide effective and appropriate intervention-prevention programs, consisting of many factors including evaluation and treatment support.
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•
•
•
•
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Bad Men Do What Good Men Dream
Establish a workplace violence aftermath debriefing program for
all employees and their families within 12 hours of an incident. Provide aftercare for employees who have been psychologically traumatized by workplace violence.
Identify and assess workplace stressors with measures to reduce
employee job stress.
Identify abusive managers with written policies for counseling, discipline, transfer, or termination.
Educate employees to recognize violent tendencies in themselves
and other employees, to seek help, or to report threatening comments and behaviors.
Create a central office for reporting threatening behaviors.
Provide appropriate and supportive out-placement programs for
former employees.
The clustering of workplace violence in other places throughout
the country may follow a mass murder in the workplace. Knowledge
that there is a clustering phenomenon can be used as an early prevention alert to heighten security and to institute other preventative measures.
The notion that mental health professionals can predict violence is
a myth. Psychiatrists have long known that they cannot predict violence with any great degree of accuracy. The clinical prediction of violence is accurate less than 50% of the time. Simply flipping a coin
would increase accuracy to 50-50. One of the reasons that psychiatrists
and other mental health professionals have such a low predictive rate
is that they overpredict violence out of concern for their patients as
well as endangered third parties. They are able to achieve better predictive rates when the base rate of violence in the underlying group is
well known; for example, we can make accurate predictions in 25% to
30% of cases in disturbed psychiatric inpatients. Actuarial assessment
attempts to predict reasonably accurate risk probabilities of violence
for specific populations, for example, the likelihood of new violence by
a previously violent offender when considering him or her for parole.
The forensic psychiatrist has an even harder job in conducting assessments of potential violence for the courts, especially because the
evaluation must address a person’s dangerousness—a legal term of art
that is very vaguely defined by the courts and has little clinical meaning. The courts want to know if the person in question is going to act
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131
violently at some point in the future. Psychiatrists, however, cannot
predict dangerousness, although the courts insist that we do so. The
United States Supreme Court has held that if jurors must make decisions about dangerousness, certainly psychiatrists are in an even better
position to do so. Psychiatrists can assess the risk of violence, as well
as manage violence. They can assess the risk of violence based on the
evaluation of certain risk factors—for example, those listed in Table
6–2. The assessment of violence risk factors is a here-and-now evaluation. Violence risk assessment is a process, not an event, meaning that
a potentially violent person should usually be assessed more than
once. That is why the use of the term imminent violence is a fiction; it
presumes a predictive capacity that does not exist. Mental health professionals cannot reliably predict when or even whether violence will
occur. The purpose of clinical violence assessment is to inform treatment and management of the potentially violent individual; it is a lot like
weather forecasting: pretty good for the moment but not so good for
the longer term. And, as with weather forecasts, the assessments of potential violence must be frequently updated to be of value.
In assessing violence risk factors, psychiatrists especially look for
the presence of mental disorders. However, the connection between
mental disorders and violence is murky. More violent crimes are committed by people who are not identified as mentally ill than by those
who have been so diagnosed. So many factors enter into the making
of a violent episode that credible analysis of predisposing factors is a
daunting, if not inherently impossible, task. The most reliable risk factor for future violence is past violence. Threats made against specific
individuals are another serious risk factor. The combination of a history of past violence and present threats is an ominous sign that
heightens the risk of violence dramatically. Coworkers who after a violent event say that people should have seen it coming because of previously uttered threats could actually help prevent some of this violence. Management and workers need to learn how to identify such
expressed warnings and take action to diffuse the potential for violence.
Threats must be taken seriously. However, forcefully confronting
the disgruntled employee may increase his or her humiliation and
rage. Counterthreats can also cause an escalation in the risk of violence. Engaging the employee in a fair and reasonable grievance procedure is often the best way to productively harness and diffuse work-
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TABLE 6–2.
Factors to consider in psychiatric assessment of
violence risk
•
Specific person threateneda
•
Past violent actsa
•
Individual-specific violence risk factors (triggers)
•
Motive
•
Therapeutic alliance (ongoing patient)
•
Other relationships
•
Psychiatric diagnosis (major psychiatric disorders and personality
disorders)
•
Control of anger
•
Situational status
•
Employment status
•
Epidemiological data (age, sex, race, socioeconomic group,
marital status, violence base-rates)
•
Availability of lethal means
•
Available victim
•
Violent feelings or impulses, acceptable or unacceptable
•
Specific plan
•
Childhood abuse (or witnessing spouse abuse)
•
Alcohol abuse
•
Drug abuse
•
Mental competency
•
History of impulsive behavior
•
Central nervous system disorder
•
Low intelligence
aWhen a
specific person is threatened and past violence has occurred, a high
risk rating for violence is achieved.
Source.
Adapted from Simon and Tardiff 2008.
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