Workplace Violence: When Grievance Becomes a Threat

In the first episode of Security Details, we examine a workplace violence case in Denton County, Texas, where a woman was murdered at work after a coworker became fixated on her break times.

What started as frustration became resentment. Resentment became obsession. And according to investigators, that obsession escalated into planning, weapons, and a fatal shooting.

This conversation looks at how workplace violence can develop over time, what warning signs may appear before an incident, and why organizations need a clear process for reporting, assessing, and responding to concerning behavior.

For leaders, HR, legal, facilities, and security teams, the lesson is direct: small concerns can become serious risks when they are ignored, minimized, or handled without a coordinated plan.

Security Details breaks down real incidents to help organizations better understand risk, protect people, and make stronger decisions before a crisis unfolds.

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:13

I'm William Porter Ward, and this is Security Details. This is a show for the people inside organizations responsible for security, whether that's your official role or something you've taken on over time. That includes business leaders, C-suite executives, facilities teams, HR, and legal. People who are expected to make the right decisions when it matters, often without clear guidance. We tell these stories with a true crime lens on purpose because stories are how we understand what actually happens. But we don't stop there. Each episode, we break down a real incident, then bring in experienced professionals to walk through what went wrong, what was missed, and what could have been done differently. The goal is simple to give you clear, real-world insight you can actually use to protect your people, your operations, and your organization. Every episode, a different incident, a different set of risks, a different set of lessons. So if this is something you're responsible for, follow along. And with that, this episode, we're talking about workplace violence. Just after nine in the morning, a police dispatch begins receiving calls from inside a trucking company office. Employees are reporting an active shooter. Officers rush to the scene, expecting chaos. But when they arrive, something unusual happens. Inside the building, a man is already standing there. His hands are raised. He's calm, waiting. Officers ask him a simple question. Are you the shooter? The man answers with a single word. Yes. Inside the office, officers make a grim discovery. A woman is lying beneath her desk. She has been shot five times. Paramedics rush her to the hospital, but the injuries are too severe. She is pronounced dead shortly after. The man responsible is a 51-year-old co-worker. And according to investigators, the motive behind this killing sounds almost impossible to believe. For months, he had been obsessing over one thing his co-workers' break times. What began as frustration had slowly turned into fixation. Police say the suspect believed his co-worker was taking unauthorized long breaks. Something about it bothered him deeply. Over time, that irritation grew into resentment, and eventually into obsession. Investigators say he later admitted the situation was causing him pain. But the victim had started noticing the behavior too. She became uncomfortable, concerned enough to report him to management. The company took action. The suspect was suspended. Before he could return to work, he was required to speak with a counselor. On paper, the issue appeared to be addressed. But according to police, the suspension didn't end the obsession. It may have intensified it. When he returned to work, the suspect told investigators he felt different, isolated. He believed co-workers were avoiding him. At one point, he told police, everyone must think I'm a psychopath. Around this time, something even more troubling began to happen. The suspect started purchasing firearms. And investigators say he wasn't just thinking about violence, he was rehearsing it. Weeks before the shooting, he brought weapons to work, more than once, but each time, he left. Later telling police that it simply didn't feel like the right time. On one occasion, he even drove to work on his day off and waited in the parking lot, watching, thinking, planning. Then came the morning of October 17th. Investigators say the suspect watched his co-worker take a break. When she returned to the office, he followed her. He retrieved his guns, walked into the office area, and opened fire. Within minutes, police arrived, and the man responsible was already standing there, hands raised, waiting. What began as a workplace grievance had quietly escalated for months until it ended in murder. Cases like this raise difficult questions. How does something that seems so small turn into something so deadly? And more importantly, could the warning signs have been recognized earlier? So, with that in mind, today we're joined by Mike Keenan, who over 40 plus years has led work across investigations, internal theft, violence prevention, and broader security and risk operations. He started an FBI foreign counterintelligence and went on to lead loss prevention for major retailers like Macy's, Gap, and Ross. He's also spent over 20 years advising the National Retail Federation. He's now managing director of retail loss prevention at Tal Global. I'll hand it over to Mike, where he'll break down this incident further with an expert in the field. Mike, take it away.

SPEAKER_00 5:40

Well, thank you very much for that great introduction. Our guest today is Oscar Villanueva, who is the president of Tal Global. Welcome, Oscar. Hey, thanks, Mike. Uh how's everything going on your side? Hey, it's pretty crazy. And we're going to be talking about that interesting case. And I'm really interested in getting your opinions. Because I was in the retail segment, as you know, for quite a while. And I had a lot of situations that were violence in the workplace potential. And we worked through them. And fortunately, uh never had a situation that resulted in a fatality like this one did. How about in your career?

SPEAKER_01 6:20

Yeah, you know, working for many years uh doing workplace violence investigations, uh I've seen a lot. Um this one takes the cake in a number of ways. It's kind of uh uh unusual in that um, you know, oftentimes these things tend to work themselves out or the potential attacker gets uh you know gets identified and something happens to stop the action. But in this case it went all the way, which is kind of a sad, tragic uh situation that happened here.

SPEAKER_00 6:53

Yeah, I agree with you. I think that they actually did a lot of the right things, but for some reason they didn't work. So when you say this one takes a piece of cake, what do you mean by that?

SPEAKER_01 7:06

Well, I mean, it's got all kinds of interesting components. I mean, there was uh uh the employee assistance program involved, he got some uh psychological support. Uh that didn't seem to help. And then he um completes his his plan of of uh doing something about uh about this situation by showing up and shooting this uh other employee. That you know, that's an extreme uh example. I know that there's a lot of um uh active shooter situations when it comes to workplace violence. This one, you know, they they did the right things in a number of ways. Um he was sent to get some psychological support that didn't seem to do a whole lot, but perhaps even went the the wrong direction when it came to motivating him to finalize his plans. So it it is it is kind of a traveling situation here.

SPEAKER_00 8:03

Aaron Powell Interesting because as you said, they did have the individual talk to some kind of counselor, and it does seem like that backfired. And I haven't had that experience where it's backfired.

SPEAKER_01 8:21

Well, it's entirely possible that his desire to complete this um threat uh in this attack was already there, and the uh behavioral health support might not have done enough to uh to help him, or or maybe it was too late in his trajectory to to violence. It was uh you know, it was it was it was too late. He already decided that he was going to do something about it. Maybe he went to get uh to that psychological support um uh meeting or consultation with the counselor out of requirement for his job. Maybe he they send him, so he just maybe felt like he had to go. Um, but clearly, you know, I I don't know whether the psychological support or the behavioral health support failed or he had just made up his mind that he was going to do something and he went just as a transaction. Okay, they send me, I'm gonna go. And then when he came out of it, it it really didn't change his mind. So uh I'm not sure whether it failed or he had just made up his mind.

SPEAKER_00 9:25

Well, you make a good point there because what what I kind of picked up on is that based on the statements he made to the police, for example, you know, he thought everyone in the office thought he was a uh you know a psychopath or a sociopath after having the counseling. It sounds like there may have been some things said that, to your point, of him already on the path, just used it as additional rationalization for his behavior.

SPEAKER_01 9:53

Yeah, it could be. You know, I really believe that in the workplace, uh, oftentimes when there's a workplace violence issue is often perpetrated by uh an individual that fits the description of a um grievance collector, someone who holds a grudge, uh blames the world for everything that goes wrong in life, and somehow eventually they feel like they have to make something something happen on their own.

SPEAKER_00 10:23

No, I I hear what you're saying, and I think there was more of an emotional attachment to this employee, um, and he wasn't getting her attention, wasn't getting what he wanted. And I think the long breaks and things like that sound melodramatic, but I think that again, they may have just been a rationalization. Well, you know, Oscar, since this podcast is about helping leaders um identify problems with violence in the workplace, what advice would you give to a leader who is facing a similar situation?

SPEAKER_01 10:58

Well, clearly to take it serious from the very beginning, uh, this type of situations are um frequently uh noticeable very early on. And uh it is it is a good strategy to try to resolve issues at the lowest possible level. That uh would be a good time to intervene and have a conversation with him, trying to change the trajectory that he's on and try to resolve uh issues again at the lowest possible um uh place or situation time. Um, it is also uh important to try to solicit intelligence uh from uh employees around him, and by intelligence I don't mean spying on anybody, but just um really uh trying to get others to report um situations that seem out of the ordinary. If this individual was behaving in a certain way, if he was um fixated on this other uh employee and kept complaining about it, verbalizing a lot of these issues um can be good uh early information so that those that are in power or those that can do something about it can jump in and actually work on these issues again early. And oftentimes employees will come to managers, supervisors to report something. And managers and supervisors need to be ready to accept that information and look into it. So oftentimes, if this individual's come and share something with you and that uh is not followed up or they're not taken up, uh they're not taken seriously when they do report something, that will be the last time that individual is going to come and report anything. So um pay attention to those that are giving you information that is troubling or uh is is a bit different than their norm, then that's important to pay attention to that. And oftentimes that comes from other coworkers, employees that are closer to that individual and they notice things that just seem out of place.

SPEAKER_00 13:07

I agree. I agree 100%. I think when I look back on my experience, uh it was really important that the company set up very clear guidelines on relationships, because relationships are, as you know, can be very volatile. Um, but the other piece that you bring up, and I agree with 100%, is the communication, uh, really creating very clear layers of communication so that if people have something to report, they know how to do it, including potentially even an anonymous tip line. And then, as you mentioned, each of those things needs to be followed up on. But I feel that it is one of the things where there are usually indicators. I had a number of situations where after the fact, people came forward and said things that would have been very helpful to have had prior to whatever the conflict was that took place. So I agree with you. It is really about communication. And then once you get that communication, having a very clear action plan on how you're going to follow up on that to create a strategy for each individual situation to make sure that you're doing everything you can to protect uh the people involved and then all the other employees.

SPEAKER_01 14:26

Uh sometimes people don't want to get involved, but if it's anonymous, they're they're likely to give you that information that's very, very important. The other is that um in order to identify workplace violence and know what to do about it, it's important to have a structured approach to that. And that often um comes in the by the by creating a workplace violence program, something that has not only a policy that clearly states what your stance is for your company regarding workplace violence, uh, that it will not be tolerated, and whatever else you would like to include in that, the values of the company and so forth, but also how to investigate it, how to um how to educate employees, how to provide training, uh, how to uh obtain uh external resources if you need that, um, how to keep track of incidents and um just uh continue to examine things that happen. Um, you know, there's there's only two kinds of companies in this world. One is one that has had issues with workplace violence and one that will have issues with workplace violence, because it happens to just about every company at some time in their uh in their trajectory. And I think it's uh important to be ready.

SPEAKER_00 15:46

You should have someone in your organization. Uh generally it it could be an HR person or uh even the security professional if you have one who goes and gets additional training on this. There are uh seminars, there's information out there so that you have someone in your company that uh has that expertise. And if you don't, then there are companies out there that can provide that expertise, um, especially getting someone who is truly a behavioral analysis type of an individual who's a professional. In my companies, uh, we always had someone on speed dial uh that we had a contract with. And whenever there was a situation, we brought them in to evaluate it and give us advice on what steps we should take. So I think those are some practical things that a company can do right away to help prevent some kind of situation that took place like it did uh with this unfortunate trucking company.

SPEAKER_01 16:46

Yeah, that's a really good point. I think, you know, one of the um one of the very, very basic, but also very, very important components of workplace violence prevention is to actually provide training. Uh, and by that I mean workplace violence, security, and situational awareness training for all employees, every single employee out there uh in any company. Uh do that at least on a yearly basis as a refresher, and then consider uh providing a little bit more advanced training to managers and supervisors and leadership so that they understand and know how to accept uh employees' uh intelligence uh or complaints or information when they come to talk about a situation. How should that be handled? What should they do about it? So training for everybody at least once a year is an excellent idea and really essential to preventing workplace violence, and then training management and leadership uh to understand how workplace violence works and how they should handle it from their perspective is also key to maintaining a safe and secure uh workplace.

SPEAKER_00 18:03

I agree. And one of the things that you pointed out, and I feel really strongly about Oscar, is that communication. And you said something that I really focused on in my career was to be approachable and to make people feel comfortable in providing information. And that actually takes work. And I think with the current workplace, there's a lot of people who don't even work in the office. But when they do work in the office, are they in their cubes and not talking to anybody? So, in creating a, you know, communication channels, that's important, but that's procedural. The second piece is what you talked about training people in how to take that information, make the person feel comfortable in giving it, knowing that you will protect their anonymity, those kinds of things are really important to be able to get good information. Um, I had a lot of situations because I tried to be approachable. And I had one uh happen to me several times, a type of thing, which was actually kind of humorous, is I had would get information from an employee who was upset with their significant other and would give information about what they were doing, stealing, or, you know, stealing time or doing things like that. And um, it would give us good information, we could initiate an investigation, but then later I'd get a call back and say, oh, you know what I told you? That you know, that wasn't true. And it was a relationship issue where they were on the outs and then we're back together again and they tried to rescind the information. And so when you have people feeling comfortable and giving you information, um, you are going to feel more comfortable that what's going on out there, you're going to be aware of and be able to react to.

SPEAKER_01 19:47

Yes, I think that's uh that's right on the money. I think that's very true. Um, the other thing that goes along with that is that uh domestic violence oftentimes spills onto the workplace. So um that could also be a source of workplace violence that uh, to no fault of the company, still causes issues and becomes a problem. And one thing that we can we could probably all relate to on our professional and personal lives is uh oftentimes we hear about an incident that happened with someone you know or in a location that you that you're aware of. And the first thought that comes to your mind is, oh, I knew that was going to happen. That was that was likely to happen. I knew that person was uh a ticking bomb. Uh I hear this all the time in the type of cases that we work. And the reality is that people around these individuals often know quite a bit about what's going on. And tapping into that information and getting those individuals to share it so that you can do something about it is really, really important if you're gonna take uh workplace violence prevention serious, or for that matter, any type of security concern at a workplace.

SPEAKER_00 21:07

No, you're absolutely right. And and I think that there are some strategies that can help you with that, especially with domestic violence, which is definitely, I think, one of the largest um contributors to violence in the workplace situations. And that's restraining orders. If you if you work together, you can do that. And in a company that has a corporate office, it's easier to control your perimeter. I was in retail and in stores, um, people could just come in because it was open to the public. And we would use a combination of restraining orders and um trespassing, trespassing the person from the store, saying you're not, you know, you're not allowed in, which required documentation and filing a police report. And then that way, if the person even came into the location, even though it was a you know public place, we were able to stop them and escort them off the premises. So there are some tactical things that you can work on to prevent a potential violence in the workplace situation with domestic ramifications by doing things like that.

SPEAKER_01 22:15

Yeah, you're right. You're right. And a restraining order, a temporary restraining order, a permanent restraining order is one of those tools that is really, really important. And it is true that it's essential in a domestic violence situation, but it's also useful and essential if you have any other type of threat, threat happening to your to your organization or individuals in your company. One thing to remember about temporary restraining orders or restraining orders in general is that in order for you to be able to take action, you need to actually file one. In other words, if somebody is threatening your CEO or an employee at your company and they happen to come and park across the street from your office and you don't have a restraining order, there's nothing you can do about it. It's a free country I can park or anyone anyone can park. As long as they're legally parked, they can just park there and stay all day if they want to. They're not really breaking the law. But if you have a restraining order that limits their um presence there, they can't be so close or they need to be further away or they're not supposed to be there at all, then you can call the police, give them a copy of the restraining order, and then that can uh trigger an arrest or um the police to do something about it. Without a restraining order in that type of situation you would not be able to do to do much about it. So restraining orders is definitely a tool that is important depending on the situation. I would say it's not always the first resort. It's not always the first action that should be taken, but it's definitely a very strong tool that should be considered the what the same as trespassing. Trespassing somebody can be very helpful again because you can have the police take action if you can prove that you have a trespass on a certain individual or a restrained order. It makes it so much easier.

SPEAKER_00 24:24

I absolutely agree and I I appreciate how you clarify that and went more into detail because it is important to understand how those things work and that to your point you do need to file them. Well Oscar it's been great having you as a guest I think we've covered a lot of information that's good food for thought for our listeners and uh is there any final thoughts you have before we wrap up well I would say just uh wrapping up here I would say that when it comes to workplace violence prevention, um, you should have a plan.

SPEAKER_01 24:57

You should execute that plan. You should listen to your employees and complaints that come your way understand and um log uh keep that information do something about it. And also remember that training all employees in management separate is is also very important and it can help keep your workplace safe and secure. But thank you Mike I appreciate you inviting me to participate in this absolutely it was great having you and that's today's workplace violence conversation.

SPEAKER_02 25:35

Thanks to Mike Keenan and Oscar Villaneueva for joining us. If you're responsible for decisions around people, operations or risk take what's useful, apply it, and join us next time as we tackle another security issue. Follow security details wherever you listen to podcasts to stay ahead of the risks shaping your organization. And if you have questions, scenarios or something you want us to break down send it to info at talglobal dot net until next time stay alert and stay safe.