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A few days ago we handled a small threat assessment investigation for a client corporation.  Over the past few years, we’ve gained some good experience and insight on handling these issues.  Anyway, this small project inspired my first blog posting for 2012…Happy New Year.

The threat was a vicious ranting voicemail message left in the middle of the night on the employee’s office line.  The offender, a customer of the corporation who dealt primarily with the employee, was unhappy with the results and the service provided.  In the voicemail, she (yes the offender was a woman) cursed out the employee’s services, her work product, and her competency.  She went on to curse about two other staff members whom she also had direct contact.  So far—angry customer and typical customer service issue.

But next in the voicemail were the racial comments and the sexual comments along with more profanity and the angry veiled threat about “messing with the wrong person.”  At the least, the anger in her message has crossed some line of business ethics and entered the criminal intimidation and harassment side.  Veiled threats in the workplace, whether by customers, patrons, or co-workers, are forms of workplace violence if the result of the conduct is fear.  At this point, the employee is in fear.  At this point, the corporation is responsible to act.

And the voicemail played on with more cursing rants and suggestions about what the employee and colleagues can do with themselves, etc., ending with, “I know who your family is and where they live.”  The fear suddenly becomes terror.  Two minutes into her morning and the employee’s family has been threatened by a raging customer.

Fortunately this client had a procedure designed for staff who received threats, whether in person or via email or voicemail.  She forwarded the voicemail to the Security Director who retained the message along with calling data, and then sent notification to all Department stakeholders who had dealings with the employee, the project, and the customer (aka Threat).

The first steps in this investigation were to listen to the threat and analyze the words and monologue.  It was immediately clear that the angry caller felt disrespected, deeply impacted, victimized, and wanted to be recognized.  But the threat was obviously veiled…no specific act of violence mentioned, and no specific time line or description of a revengeful plot: Nothing specifically that could be used in criminal charges.  Emotional upset and inappropriate behavior for a middle age educated professional; this was clear.  Perhaps she called the employee’s voicemail in the middle of the night and left this ranting as a type of release or venting and sometime the next day she would call back and apologize and beg for forgiveness and humbly go away.  But if the threat assessment team were to sit back and wait for her to apologize, there would be critical liability for the corporation should those threats materialize.  Time delay and patience is not a good tool in addressing a threat.

The investigation takes two teams.  The in-house team, such as the Security Director and HR specialist, are tasked with quickly interviewing the employee and the co-workers who were mentioned in the threat.  Details such as the nature of the customer service issue and facts about the project are critical but this is also an important time to confidentially gather perceptions about the offender’s personality and lifestyle.  In this case, the in-house team learned that the customer was a single mother of one child (now an adult) and that she had an unsteady employment history.  Beyond that, she frequently talked about demons and religion and claimed that she was strictly religious and dreamed to start a children’s charity: A dream not remotely related to her present position.

As the outside investigation team, we quickly ran criminal history and database research and learned that the customer had significant offenses considered to be at the lowest levels.  She was a “boundary crosser”:  A person who will not respect the laws of order or a person’s rights of private property.  Defiant trespass and disorderly conduct were a few of her charges, along with traffic related offenses for significant speeding, driving  while license suspended, and failing to obey traffic signals.  But there were no crimes of violence and no history of incarceration.  She existed on the fringe of disorderly crimes and inappropriate conduct, with just enough skill and control to keep from crossing the final line into jail.  She demanded attention and she demanded respect.  Though most of the charges showed that she pled guilty, this showed to some respect that she was not delusional in the fight.

An address check was made based on the corporate records along with our database research.  There was nothing significant.  She lived in an apartment.  In some cases we might do longer surveillance to determine more about the subject’s lifestyle.  In this case, she looked normal.  All her electronic and social networking sites seemed normal too.  There was absolutely nothing regarding her anger toward the corporation or her apparent hatred to the employee.  There is more to threat assessment than just looking at a subject’s social networking and the credibility of this source must be analyzed carefully.  For her, this anger toward the employee and the corporation might be more personal and private.

The Security Director prepared and sent a no-trespass and no-contact notice to the customer and filed the notice with the local police department along with providing the police a basic report on the voicemail threat.  Police agreed to increase patrol in the area as much as possible but specifically during the start and end of the work shift for the employees mentioned.  On the afternoon that the letter was delivered, the Security Director received a call from the customer’s father.  He apologized for the problems that she had created and he advised that she struggles with some “medical issues” and won’t be a problem to the corporation or anyone, as she is receiving treatment.

In this case, the most likely result of violence would have been a verbal confrontation as the customer would barge her way into the corporate offices to have a direct confrontation with the employee and staff.  Perhaps, she may have taken the bold steps to go directly to the employee’s home or the mentioned family member’s homes and voice her protests in person to them.  While this type of activity is not the high profile shootings and violence that we see in the media, it still becomes a breach of security and peace and creates an atmosphere of fear fitting the definition of workplace violence.

The corporate client decided to monitor this case to see if there is any suspicious activity or any further communication of threats.  The father’s contact information was retained just in case she did make contact again.  Police agencies were made aware of the status of the case should follow-up be required.  While the employee and co-workers sighed some relief that the issue was dying off, they will not forget the fear and discomfort that was probably unpreventable in the business world dealing with the general public.  This case was resolved quickly by a good pre-threat plan and procedure and by good quick follow-up interviews and investigation by the threat assessment team.

I’m predicting that 2012 will be a year of some economic growth and optimism for our nation.  Yet the trend of lawlessness and hatred for corporate America is alive and well.  We are seeing an expanded interest in our corporate investigation, threat assessment, and executive protection services.  Thanks for reading and please feel free to contact me directly if you want to discuss a problem or threat, where business becomes personal.  Brian D. Baker, CPP (January 2012)