The bulletproof office

Communication World,  Oct-Nov, 1997  by Cheryl O'Donovan

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One steamy August day in 1986, postal employee Patrick Sherrill, 44, walked into the U.S. Post Office in Edmond, Okla. Inside his mail pouch were three guns and 100 rounds of ammunition. Sherrill killed 17 coworkers and himself in 10 minutes. Why? What cracked inside Sherrill's skull? Speculation ranged from post-traumatic syndrome to a poor performance review. Eleven years later, we still don't know. Sherrill had lived on the same street for 20 years. He used the words "thank you" and "please." A former neighbor shrugged. "We live in a time when we want quick answers. And since he's not alive, we don't have to come up with the right answers."

Software technician Richard Farley was 36 when he joined Electromagnetic Systems Labs (ESL). There, he met Laura Black, a 22-year-old electrical engineer. For the next three years, Farley deluged Black with 200 letters. He trailed her everywhere. Human resources instructed Farley to stop and to seek psychological help. When the harassment continued, ESL fired Farley. He lost his U.S. $36,000 job and two houses. The U.S. Internal Revenue Service was after him. He wrote Black in November 1987. "You cost me a job, 40 thousand in equity taxes and a foreclosure. Yet I still like you. Why do you want to find out how far I'll go?" In February 1988, Black finally got a temporary restraining order against him.

In mid-February, Farley approached his ex-employer's building, clinking with 100 pounds of weaponry. At the entrance, bullets shattered glass. En route to Black's office, Farley killed seven and wounded another four. He shot Black twice. Although her injuries were serious, she stayed alive. Farley's siege lasted five hours with a SWAT team. When apprehended, he expressed no shame. Incredibly, Farley seemed almost gleeful. Three years later, in November 1991, a jury recommended the death penalty. Richard Farley had no prior criminal record whatsoever.

Trends, Theories and Causes

Work-place violence accelerated in the 1990s, after a dip in the 1980s.

On an average working day, three people will be murdered on the job in the U.S. One million workers are assaulted and more than 1,000 are murdered every year, according to the U.S. National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health. Homicide is the second highest cause of death on the job, after motor vehicle accidents. That translates into three cases for every 10,000 workers, confirms the U.S. Department of Labor. in 1992, 111,000 incidents of work-place violence cost employers and others an estimated $6.2 million.

Who's most at risk? Those with close public contact: police officers, security guards, health care workers and retail employees. The most dangerous occupation is that of the taxi driver. These workers are subjected to robbery, unstable customers, an ambush in the emergency room. Violence increases with these variables: exchange of money, guarding valuable property or possessions, working alone, graveyard shifts. "Employee-gone-amok" incidents snare more headlines, but the biggest casualties are overlooked.

In an environment that begets sociopathic behavior, people can no longer cling to "It can't happen here." Violence's random squeeze can happen to anyone. Anywhere. Any time.

Michael Kelleher, author of three books on the subject, concedes the "whys" are diverse. "In short, the causes tend to fall into broad categories, such as (1) personal and familial, (2) work place related, and (3) societal. The growing impersonality of the. work place contributes to a propensity for. violence. However, it is not the sole cause."

More than 1,000 studies, including a 1972 U.S. surgeon general's report and a 1980s' report by the U.S. National Institute of Mental Health, show a relationship between media violence and aggression. One University of Washington researcher says television violence plays a role in about half of all U.S. murders. By the time a child reaches 18, he or she will have viewed 200,000 acts of violence on television. George Gerbner, Ph.D., at the University of Pennsylvania, confirms that children's TV shows contain roughly 20 violent acts per hour.

Two Canadian towns became a "proof-of-concept" in the early '70s. One town had access to television. Blocked by a mountain range, the second town didn't. Researchers from the University of British Columbia compared aggression levels in first and second graders. Once the "mountain town" finally got television, hitting, biting and shoving increased - by 160 percent. University of Michigan psychologists, Leonard Eron, Ph.D., and Rowell Huesmann, Ph.D., have analyzed the viewing habits of children for decades. Watching TV violence is the single factor most closely associated with aggression - more than poverty, race or parental influence. According to Eron, "the only people who dispute the connection between smoking and cancer is the tobacco industry. And the only people who dispute the TV and violence connection is the entertainment industry."