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Abstract

On December 14, 2010 a 56 yr. old man, Clay Duke, approached the 6-member school board panel during its meeting, brandishing a gun. After allowing the females to leave the room, he confronted the male members about the termination of his wife, a school teacher. He then wildly fired several shots and, fortuitously, nobody was hit. Almost immediately, Duke was shot by the school district safety officer. Since board meetings are public events, local media filmed videotape of the entire violent episode. The dramatic footage received vast media attention and was the lead story across national TV networks. Crisis management has garnered much research attention in the organizational and business literature over the past decade. This article (a) reviews prior research findings on deadly workplace violence, and (b) offers recommendations for the mitigation of workplace shootings in light of this audacious, tragic incident in Panama City, Florida.

Introduction

Workplace violence, over the past 2 decades, has unfortunately become an ubiquitous aspect of organizational life and the business environment (Davis, 1997), and more importantly, has taken on a myriad of forms. For example, harrassment, mass shootings (e.g., Buckley et al., 1999; Laabs, 1999), revenge reactions (Sommers et al., 2002), and mass bullying (Keim & McDermott, 2010).

Alarmingly, recent research by the American Society of Safety Engineers-Risk Management Group reported little change in corporate security policy and procedures from 1999 to 2004; specifically, there has been scant implementation or refinement in workplace violence training (see ASSE 2004 Workplace Violence Survey & White Paper; ISHN, 2004).

According to the trade publication Occupational Hazards' (2004), there were 164 workplace shootings in the U.S. between 1994-2003, resulting in 290 fatalities and 161 injured. Of these incidents, 52% of the perpetrators experienced a recent deleterious change in employment status. Moreover, nearly 14% of the attackers had a publicly known record...

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