©2023 Gail Pursell Elliott
When a workplace mass shooting is reported, I read and listen carefully to see if bullying might be a contributing factor. Recently in California, a shooter attacked two locations where he worked. He said he had been bullied by coworkers, and the last straw was when a manager handed him a bill for $100 for damage to a piece of equipment. The manager was among the victims. It was the last straw. He’d had enough.
Sometimes there is information reported which then appears to be backpedaled. There are statements made by coworkers or family members initially that disappear. If you’re not paying attention, you might miss these bits of information or in retrospect wonder what happened to them. In other cases, the information later may be denied by various sources. Often the shooter is deceased and the item cannot be verified.
The shooting in Louisville was one of these instances that I found troubling. Initially, I saw what appeared to be a pattern of mobbing. The shooter was well educated with multiple degrees in his field. He had spent three summers as an intern at the company where he worked. He was known and knew them. He was hired and worked there for two years before the shooting. Something happened and not suddenly. There must have been some pattern of which we are not aware. The initial information stated that he was notified that he was going to be fired. For a young man with education, experience, and a track record with the bank this would be devastating. Also, people are generally not notified that they are going to be fired through normal channels. When someone is dealing with privileged information of any kind in a company, they are usually told and walked out the same day.
If someone in the company sees someone as a threat or has some sort of unaddressed conflict, they might begin setting the person up to look less competent or not fitting in. The target of a mobbing may become confused, depressed, paranoid, get counseling, the family may not know what to do to help. Their work performance may be uneven as they second guess themselves. By the time management gets involved, Phase three of the mobbing process, they may see the target as not meeting expectations. Phase four is when the target gets labeled as being difficult or mentally ill, which was developed in this case after the incident as a cause. In fact, mental illness is often pointed out as a factor in mass shootings whether in the workplace or elsewhere. Emotional abuse contributes to this kind of illness. The perpetrator may use innuendo to suggest to the target that they are going to be fired. This may put the target over the edge, especially if the person has endured subtle abuse for an extended period of time which may be months or more.
This information that the shooter was informed that he was going to be fired was mentioned multiple times initially. The fact that the main victims of the shooting were in a staff meeting including decision makers may verify that whether or not this was true, the shooter may have believed it. The mayor of Louisville said he did not believe that the shooter was informed he was going to be fired. What basis there was for that statement other than subjective opinion was not stated that I found.
I remember an interview partner, when writing the Mobbing book, saying that it was his whole life that these people were able to throw out. While our partner did not shoot up his workplace, there are those who have done just that. Perhaps this young man did have contributing issues that made him more vulnerable and fragile. Perhaps the belief that he was going to be fired from a job he had worked for years to achieve at a place where he wanted to be, was the last straw for him. We will never know for sure but there are those who do or did know what contributing factors there had to be in that workplace.
Quite an issue was made that the shooter was not informed that he was going to be fired. The family was told that this was not the case, along with others. Obviously, I was not the only one connecting the dots of possibility. There are cases of workplace shootings that go back to disgruntled employees who believe they are mistreated and feel desperate. There are others that happen after an employee is let go. There are still more in which desperation is acted out in suicide. Sometimes they are simultaneous.
One thing is certain. This is a tragedy. One of many that we now see, one after the other it seems. What we can do in our own workplaces is to offer help to anyone who seems to be floundering. To intercept conflict when it occurs and to follow up to see if it resurfaces in any other way. To help people succeed.
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Gail Pursell Elliott, is known as the Dignity and Respect Lady and has been writing and presenting about Mobbing and Bullying since 1998. She is an expert in the field and has appeared on television, radio, and talk shows. She is the author of several books and has been writing the Bully at Work column for Workplace Violence Today since its inception.
To contact Gail, visit her website at https://innovations-training.com
Mobbing and Bullying 