Posted on 03/16/2010 2:03:05 PM PDT by Graybeard58
In March 2008, retired teacher Charles Johnson opened fire at a hospital in Georgia, killing three employees; police said he sought revenge against staffers who cared for his mother before she died in 2004. Last April, Mario Ramirez, a pharmacy technician at California's Long Beach Memorial Medical Center, shot and killed two supervisors before committing suicide; his motive may never be known. Last December, Robert Yagi, driven by love and compassion, shot his terminally ill wife as she lay in her hospital bed in Hawaii; she survived, but he later committed suicide.
On March 2, Stanley Lupienski, an elderly patient who authorities suspect has psychiatric issues, wounded a heroic nurse and himself in Danbury Hospital's cardiac unit. As is the case after almost every isolated workplace shooting, calls already have gone up for the hospital to ratchet up its security so a recurrence is impossible.
According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 517 people died in workplace homicides in 2008; the number has been trending down since its peak of 1,080 in 1994. But more people (680) died in workplace falls in 2008, and more than twice as many were killed (1,149) in work-related traffic accidents.
Meanwhile, the one conclusion to be drawn from National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health data is workplace homicides are unpredictable: A quarter of killers were former employees who were fired or laid off; 89 percent acted compulsively; 13 percent were jilted lovers, and 1 in 8 were mental-health issues. If you want to get rich, devise a foolproof security system that anticipates crazy.
There are those who will argue one on-the-job death is too many, and companies should spare no expense protecting their workers, even if the if-it-saves-one-life-it's-worth-it strategy flies in the face of the law of diminishing returns and would put many companies, including most hospitals in Connecticut, out of business.
Yes, workplaces should review and update their security procedures periodically and close the obvious holes. But bosses and employees must remember that absolute security is impossible; the vagaries of human behavior won't allow it.
Ping to a Republican-American Editorial.
If you want on or off this list, let me know.
By modern standards, you mean.
We used to throw people in the booby hatch for being screwballs. Nowadays, being a screwball is embraced as an ideal. You don't even need to ask a liberal; just LOOK at them.
Bring back booby hatches and much of modern society's problems will vanish.
I worked at a company once that was very secure. A password to enter the building, more passwords at each level as you traverse the building, needing a number of passords to get to the inner offices where the decision makers were at. But, it was a business that dealt with unhappy and sometimes hostile people.
A cry of "ALLAHU AKBAR!" is usually a good sign.
That is a problem. I remember working one place with an attorney who had had a “violent episode” (trying to strangle her secretary as she sat at her desk!) and we were all told that we had to be tolerant and understanding when the attorney returned to work. Fortunately, her next violent episode involved a suicide attempt, and some quick thinking person wrapped her in the sheets we kept for people who had to do overnighters on a case and catch a bit of sleep on a sofa, so the rest of us were spared.
But it’s true, the nuts can’t be fired for being nuts.
“and we were all told that we had to be tolerant and understanding”
That’s the crux of the issue. I am sick and tired of psychotics and violent people getting all the chances in life while all the responsible ones who keep it together have to ‘grow up and get used to it.’ Why can’t those who manage to keep it together get the breaks?
It’s like how books encourage people to ‘understand’ abusers or psychotics like people who have Borderline and abuse their kids nonstop and raise them in a jekyl/hyde lifestyle and mess them up. I am SICK of the unstable being allowed to be however they want and the innocents who pay for it have to grow up before they’re ready.
“Bring back booby hatches and much of modern society’s problems will vanish”
Now we can’t do that! It might lower their self esteem!
I agree. The only thing I thought about later is whether Bambi might someday (like the Soviets) try to label all his opponents as mentally ill. So maybe we could actually end up getting some use out of this.
Doubt it. Chances are all the smart people are going ot end up leaving. This can’t continue. I know how people say that we should stay and fight, but I think that if the country were to completely collapse, it might be a better thing. “Tough Love” so to speak.
There are too many responsible people picking up the slack of the increasing number of people who don’t do anything but cause trouble.
The Left was instrumental in doing away with the “Booby Hatches” back in the fifties, and sixties so we couldn’t commit them as was common practice prior to that time.
This is what a senior Israeli intelligence officer, years ago, said about terrorists.
You cannot negotiate with the irrational.
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