was only the latest example of a workplace shooting perpetrated by an employee.
“We have built an industry around how to lock bad guys out. We have heavily invested in physical security measure like metal detectors, cameras and armed security guards,” said James Densley, professor of criminal justice at Metropolitan State University in DePaul, Minnesota and co-founder of the nonprofit and nonpartisan research group The Violence Project. But too often in workplace shootings, he said, “this is someone who already has access to the building.
Law enforcement, including the FBI, work at the scene of a mass shooting at a Walmart, Wednesday, Nov. 23, 2022, in Chesapeake, Va. A Walmart manager opened fire on fellow employees in the break room of the Virginia store, killing several people in the country’s second high-profile mass shooting in four days, police and witnesses said Wednesday. Walmart didn’t specifically respond on Wednesday to questions seeking more detail about its training and protocols to protect its own employees.
But many employers may not have such prevention policies in place, said Liz Peterson, Quality Manager at the Society for Human Resource Management, an organization of more than 300,000 human resources professionals. Between 2014 and 2019, workplace homicides nationwide increased by 11% from 409 to 454. That was still down 58% from a peak of 1,080 in 1994, according to the report, which was released in July by the Departments of Labor, Justice and Health and Human Services. The report found that workplace homicide trends largely mirrored homicide trends nationwide.