According to Fox News, nine people are dead and two others wounded in a workplace shooting at a beer factory in Manchester, Connecticut. Police say the suspect, an employee of the company, shot himself as authorities approached him. The shooting may have been racially motivated – the gunman reportedly told his girlfriend that he had been discriminated against and a supervisor did nothing.
Last month in Albuquerque, New Mexico, a gunman believed to be targeting his ex-girlfriend who was working inside an office building, fired 21 shots killing two people and wounding four others before killing himself. The shootings sent terrified employees running to other businesses or hiding behind locked doors and under desks. Police are reviewing a 40-page manifesto left behind by the shooter to determine whether the shooting was premeditated.
As we know working in retail, people act out in a variety of ways, sometimes with criminal disregard for life. Regardless of the motive, shots ringing out in robbery, police shootout in the parking lot or active shooting incidents will emotionally terrorize nearby employees and customers.
Some of the most tragic events in in recent retail history involve shootings in stores and malls. The incident locations above resemble corporate offices and distribution centers. When shots are fired, these situations require immediate action to protect human life and notify authorities.
NRF has been addressing this problem for two years, by partnering with the International Council of Shopping Centers (ICSC) and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to create emergency response protocols for retailers to react, respond, and recover from active shooter incidents. You may download the information directly from the Homeland Security website as a poster, a booklet or a pocket guide.
A white paper produced by NRF is also available as a resource and provides some background and retail specific information on the program.
While prevention of shooting incidents in or near retail establishments is not always possible, proper response by companies and law enforcement can greatly mitigate injury, damage and loss of life. These incidents should be a reminder for all of us to revisit these protocols to ensure the safety of our customers and employees as much as we possibly can.
3 Comments
These incidents make us more and more aware of what can happen at the workplace. Employees sometime hear other team members talking about doing violence and never report it. If we could get our team members to report what they here so that Human Resources and Loss Prevention could look into the matter, we may be able to stop some of it. There is no real way to tell if the person making the statements are serious or not.
This kind of violence happens everyday, the majority in America, and cannot be explained away as some anomaly of human nature or as a result of lack of gun control.
The fact is, our environment shapes our behavior. We are all products of our environment. Genetics set propensities, but do not cause behavior.
The cause of this man’s behavior, like other outlandish emotional acts, is likely due to psycho-social-stress. Modern American society breeds this kind of behavior through imposed financial stress, feelings of inadequacy, competition and division, and glorification of violence.
It may be a good thing he ended his own life as well, because our prison system wouldn’t have helped him one bit anyway.
If you really care at all about how to prevent the majority of violent acts once and for all, please check out Zeitgeist Addendum and all materials on The Zeitgeist Movement’s Toolkit page.
Best
According to news reports this man was caught on video stealing product from his company and that was the reason for termination. Furthermore, he had never reported to anyone at the workplace that he was being discriminated against.
I do think that companies need to be hyper aware and communicate to staff that if they see abnormal behavior or issues with an employee to share that information.