Which Way Out

I work in a job where there is always the possibility someone reacting badly. Sometimes children are removed from their families as a result of our assessments and recommendations. Sometimes these removals occur at our office. Sometimes people get arrested at our office from the crimes they committed against their children. Peoples sometimes come angry to our office because DCF told them to come and they don't want to be there. We rely on our skills to de-escalate things. We have a contingency plan to handle crisis events. Several of us have been to hands-on training. There have been several times over the years we have had to call security or the police.

However what has concerned me most occurred years ago when there were several incidents of postal employees who went to their workplace and killed people, there was an incident around the same time in Tampa at the Rocky Point area. In 1993, Paul Calden, an previously fired employee of Firemans' Fund killed 3 coworkers. That made an impression upon me.

So I made contingency plans. I thought about if someone barged in the office with a gun, what would I do? Where would I go? I have been in the same offices for about 17 years. I know where the concrete walls are in my office that would help stop bullets and the paper thin ones that would not. I know where I could successfully hide and where alternative exits are. I know what I could use to block doors. I know what I could use as weapons.

I expect that there could be violence in my office. However, if I went back to school, I would not expect violence there. Rather I wouldn't have before. Now I would. Columbine. The shootings at Virginia Tech. Other schools. I accept that there is the possibility of violence everywhere. Shopping at the grocery store. In 1983 Billy Ferry threw gasoline in a Hillsborough County Winn Dixie killing 4 people. Flying on a plane. 9-11. At a Shooting Range The recent hostage situation at Dale Mabry. And other situations.

However acceptance that violence is possible does not make me any less angry and sad when it does occur. What can we do to figure who is at risk of killing people. The more I read about Cho Seung-Hui the more I wonder, if something could have been done earlier.

"News reports said that he may have been taking medication for depression and that he was becoming increasingly violent and erratic" . . . "He was a loner, and we're having difficulty finding information about him," . . . "A student who attended Virginia Tech last fall provided obscenity- and violence-laced screenplays that he said Cho wrote as part of a playwriting class they both took. One was about a fight between a stepson and his stepfather, and involved throwing of hammers and attacks with a chainsaw. Another was about students fantasizing about stalking and killing a teacher who sexually molested them. . ."When we read Cho's plays, it was like something out of a nightmare. The plays had really twisted, macabre violence that used weapons I wouldn't have even thought of," former classmate Ian McFarlane, now an AOL employee, wrote in a blog posted on an AOL Web site. He said he and other students "were talking to each other with serious worry about whether he could be a school shooter.". . . Citing unidentified sources, the Tribune also said Cho had recently set a fire in a dorm room and had stalked some women." He was referred to counseling as a result of the disturbing writings.

Interestingly the concept of could something have been done earlier, was the subject of an 1997 article in the St. Petersburg Times by Mary Rosen. This was discussing the case of Lawrence Singleton, the man who infamously hacked off the arms of a California teenager and later moved to Florida. At some point while living here, he attempted suicide and was Baker Acted. He was released and later killed a woman in his house.

"At the crux of Singleton's case is an issue that highlights the tension between the constitutional rights of the individual and issues of public safety. Can a person such as Lawrence Singleton be detained because psychiatrists predict he might repeat a violent act committed almost two decades earlier? Can psychiatric hospitals be used as holding cells for people who cannot legally be held in a prison cell? Florida law says they cannot."

I guess if nothing could be done with Lawrence Singleton, then definitely nothing could be done with Cho.

This is so sad. So sad.