THE WORKPLACE : Employees Saw a Fuse of Anger Burning

Employees who become violent or even killers in the workplace almost always telegraph their anxieties to supervisors or colleagues long before walking into the office with weapons drawn.

“Every incident I’ve ever seen has been preventable,� said Dr. Park Elliott Dietz, a Newport Beach psychiatrist who has studied workplace murders for law enforcement and private industry. “The most gut-wrenching aspect of these types of killings is that before the gunfire, the person has been asking for help, often in the most inappropriate ways.�

Twice in the past two months in San Diego County, former employees, apparently angered over conditions that left them out of work, returned to stalk their former bosses.

One worked for a San Diego electronics firm and last month allegedly killed two of six managers named on a hit list the gunman kept.

On Monday, a former employee upset over a denied workers’ compensation claim, returned to the El Cajon manufacturing company where he had worked and shot the owner in the leg before killing himself.

In Orange County, local officials still have not forgotten the bloody scene inside the Garden Grove office of the state Employment Development Department five years ago when manager Louis Zuniga was shot to death by a longtime employee who then killed himself.

And Michael Rahming’s colleagues at the Fairview Developmental Center in Costa Mesa said that the 37-year-old Long Beach resident had long been frustrated during a reported yearlong job dispute before killing his supervisor and wounding two others Tuesday morning.

An employee who witnessed the shootings described an earlier incident in which Rahming had reportedly thrown furniture around a break room during a tirade to complain that he was being denied promotions because he is black.

“I was shocked by what happened (Tuesday) but not surprised,� said the witness, who asked not to be identified.

Dr. Dietz and others who counsel managers and employees say workers who resort to violence typically “become hopeless and feel that other options have been cut away.�

“They have this feeling that others have conspired together to treat them unfairly and unjustly,� he said. “They’ve bragged about weapons collections or they’ve made many comments to friends and co-workers. The comments have been made so often that supervisors have heard of it.�

In Rahming’s case, hospital administrators reportedly became concerned in July, 1990, when the painter’s behavior allegedly became “erratic.�

“We had all talked about the possibility of something like this happening,� administrative services administrator Hal Britt said. “. . . We had a psychiatric evaluation, and the psychiatrist recognized he had problems but felt that he was able to work.�

But Gilda Garcia, a union representative for the Alliance of Trades and Maintenance, said Rahming was the victim of harassment and discrimination.

But, she said, she never thought the dispute would turn violent.

Michael Serisawa, a counselor with the Employee Support Systems Co., which has a counseling services contract with the county, said dangerous levels of pressure can build when employees believe that they have been wronged.

“One thing that’s pretty well established is that the ability to predict in these cases is pretty lousy,� Serisawa said. “But difficulties between supervisors and employees tend to churn up a lot of rage.�

Dietz, whose Threat Assessment Group has provided analyses to the FBI and to large employers, maintained that managers must be more sensitive to employee behavior and concerns.

“These people feel they’ve been (disadvantaged) in the workplace and often have a mixture of being treated insensitively and a distorted perception,� Dietz said. “Someone can take a blank look as a sign of great hostility.�

The situation can become more threatening, Serisawa said, when supervisors lack the training to spot signs of distress among their workers.

“There is not nearly enough training at the supervisory level,� he said. “It’s frightening for other employees who can’t even imagine that they have to watch out for things like that. I hope we can use that fright to ask ourselves, ‘Are we missing something here?’ �