Workplace violence can vary in motive. In cases where the violence is external meaning an employee is injured by someone outside the workforce it can be a random incident, the result of a robbery, or some altercation. The persons involved may not even know each other and there may have been no deliberate intent to commit violence. The violence may have occurred out of the incident itself.
In other cases, workplace violence can occur between two employees or an aggrieved lover who burst into the office to do harm to the person with whom he is involved. There are the occasions where workplace bullying creates a scenario where the bullying reaches critical mass and the aggrieved responds violently, either harming the person who was bullying him or taking it out on office staff in general.
I have written much about workplace violence with one recent article entitled, Elderly Worker Sentenced for Workplace Violence. As the title indicates, workplace violence is never limited to the younger workers. The person in this article was 75 years-old when he hurt others.
Now here is a case where a janitor is charged with murdering a woman in the workplace. There is no motive, really, at least no motive has been given. According to the article in NKY.Com, the suspect had previous criminal records. “He previously served two prison terms, one for receiving stolen property and possession of a handgun by a convicted felon in 1996 and one for theft by deception in 1994. ”
Would background checks have helped prevent this thoughtless killing? It’s hard to say. As these were serious offenses but not violent crimes, the hiring party may have decided to employ the suspect anyway. Whether it was to give the suspect a second chance, or whether it was hard to hire a janitor who was free of any prior criminal convictions, it’s difficult to say. And then in many states there are limits to how far back one can search for criminal records when considering a job applicant for employment. Other considerations are the age of the crime, its severity and whether there have been other crimes committed since the more severe offense.
So here we are–on one hand wanted to give convicted felons a second chance. On the other hand, we’re sorry that we did. It’s a tough call with no easy answers. It’s just a tragedy for reasons that we are not really sure. Which makes it that much more tragic.
