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Targeted Workplace Violence And City Offices

Warning Signs Abound, Even As Motivations Remain Foggy

Joe Delia, U.S. Security Consulting Services for GardaWorld, has decades of law enforcement experience. He explains, “Law enforcement, they do a pretty good job reconstructing an event afterward. What they tend to find out is one person knew that John was struggling at home. Another person knew that John was talking about su***de. Another person knew John was drinking too much. And another person knew John had started carrying a gun.” The warning signs are all there, “But nobody tells anybody.”

Even after months of investigation, we still don’t entirely understand the Virginia Beach attack. Investigators seem to have found that warning signs were present, if sparse.

Targeted Violence in the American Workplace

As we regularly point out, in general, violent crime is down in America. In many regards, we are safer every day. But in some pockets, violence—often extreme violence—has increased. And often, this is targeted violence: attacks aimed at specific groups or individuals and driven by non-economic factors (such as ideology, politics, family and domestic issues, workplace disputes, etc.)

In contrast to armed robbery, targeted violence is much harder to deter. Someone desperate for money goes for the easiest target with the highest payout. If they see that a convenience store has a bulletproof barrier in place, they go down the street to the next store.

A terminated employee who has decided that violence is the answer isn’t going to be satisfied going into some other office and yelling at someone else’s boss. They are laser-focused on their former employer, on the manager or HR representative who they feel wronged them. They’re going to return to the site of their frustration, start shooting, and keep doing so until they get to the person they believe “has it coming.”

We’re often quick to attribute this to “mental health” issues. Delia, who has a great deal of experience with workplace violence, is hesitant to do so. These acts are almost always premeditated long in advance. “This is targeted violence,” Delia emphasizes. “Somebody is mad at somebody specific, has a complaint, has been through a divorce, lost a job. … It’s more than mental health.”

Retail Security And Workplace Violence: Retail Workers Face “More Aggression In General”

Over the last few years, retail security has made an increasing number of headlines. The work has become disproportionately dangerous—and disproportionately violent.

A traditional “dangerous” job is dangerous because of the nature of the work itself. Think about agriculture, construction, lumbering, trucking, or commercial fishing. These are outdoor jobs. Those workers deal with large vehicles, dangerous weather conditions, and a significant risk of experiencing a fall or being struck by a falling object.

By contrast, retail work is indoors and usually low-impact. Yet retail worker deaths now account for roughly one-third of all workplace fatalities. And these are much more violent injuries and deaths. In traditional “dangerous jobs,” like construction, most fatalities come from vehicle accidents or falls. Most retail workplace deaths are homicide.

In the past, the most common instances of retail workplace homicides were during robberies. While that fact alone is awful, at least it lent itself to a clear survival strategy: if a worker remained calm and handed over money quickly, they would usually survive.

But conditions have changed.

Speaking at the ISC West security conference in April 2019 Lynn Mattice (managing director at security consulting firm Mattice and Associates) noted that “there may be a small [general] increase in [workplace violence], but the probability is still quite remote—except in the retail industry. In the retail industry, it is quite high.”

The Changing Nature of Retail Violence
A recent study out of Eastern Connecticut State University highlighted how retail security risks and fatalities had changed in recent years. Mitchell Doucette and his team analyzed 1,533 instances of firearm-related workplace homicides between 2011 and 2015, comparing them to earlier workplace homicides. Prior to 2000, they found that 65% (or more) of all workplace homicides stemmed from a robbery. During the 2011–2015 period that the study focused on, robbery-related attacks decreased while non-robbery attacks increased. By 2015, the numbers had practically reversed, with most workplace homicides arising from some sort of personal conflict. (They ultimately published these findings in the journal Injury Epidemiology in 2019, under the title “Workplace Homicides Committed by Firearm: Recent Trends and Narrative Text Analysis.”)

According to Doucette, these personal conflicts included “arguments between employers and employees, arguments between customers and employees, as well as other types of crimes [like] intimate partner violence, mass shootings, and other types of circumstances.”

Doucette also noted that “immediate and ready firearm access was commonly observed in argumentative workplace deaths.” This is especially concerning, given that we know the pandemic has flooded the country with more guns that are being handled less safely.

Doucette’s findings don’t surprise most people working in retail or loss prevention. Larry Hartman is director of risk management, loss prevention, and safety at Goodwill Industries of Central Florida. He has decades of experience in loss prevention, which generally sees the ugliest side of retail. In 2019 he told Loss Prevention Magazine, “These days it … takes less to put people off, to rub someone the wrong way. It’s a more sensitive environment now.”

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Decreasing The Risk Of Robbery For Non-Bank Financial Service Providers

Over the past several years the United States has seen a dramatic growth in small-dollar/”payday” lending, as well as other non-bank financial services like check cashers, pawn shops, and money services businesses (like Western Union). And while we know bank robberies have been on the decline for years–especially as the use of physical security has increased to near-universal in the banking industry–it’s much harder to tell what’s happening with non-bank financial service provider security. Based on news reports, these businesses may be seeing a sharp increase in armed robberies.

While the FBI has long tracked bank robberies as a separate category of violent crime, non-bank financial services are scattered throughout several “Miscellaneous” categories–primarily “Speciality Stores” (a sub-category that also includes furriers, jewelry stores, and dress shops). Interestingly, while the overall “Miscellaneous” category has seen a trend of decreasing robberies in the past several years, assaults on “Speciality Stores” has been increasing. Nonetheless, Total Security Solutions has not seen a marked spike in interest from jewelers, fur shops, or women’s fashion boutiques–but does continue secure many money transfer offices, payday lenders, check cashers, and pawn shops.

CALL US: +1 469 679 1495

Swp global We do all commercial and residential glass related works such as shower glass, windows, custom patio, glass stairs, bullet proof glasses and ... .