Is There a Threat at Your Company? Call in TMAP

Toxic situations related to the workplace can turn lethal in a heartbeat—even if the problem employee no longer works there. It takes a team with the right background, expertise, and law enforcement skills to resolve these situations before they turn ugly. Read my new article about how a frightening corporate situation almost became a heart wrenching tragedy.

#workplaceculture #violenceprevention #workplacesafety #threatdetection

Workplace violence is on the rise. Having a plan to deal with such incidents is crucial. Yet even with such planning in place, there are threats so severe, so disturbing no corporate professional is ready to handle them.

That’s the crisis our client faced.

My company, Threat Management and Protection, Inc . (TMAP) does work for a security agency we will call Axis International. Axis offers protective services to large organizations throughout the U.S. and Europe. Their problems began when a SoCal district manager got alarming reports about one of their workers: A security guard assigned to buildings in L.A.

We will call this guard Charles. Charles came to Axis with excellent references, including military experience. And yet he never fit in with his team. He bullied his fellow guards before raising the stakes by threatening the very people he was supposed to protect. Then one day he asked a coworker, “What would Axis do if I blew up this office at the end of my shift?”

That was the last straw.

Axis fired Charles. They thought the problem was solved. They were sadly mistaken. Charles launched a terror campaign against Axis and its staff. He made calls to executives using burner phones, threatening to kill their families in highly descriptive, grotesque ways.

That’s not all. The terrifying behavior escalated. Soon after, he sent threats through the mail using stationary stolen from offices he once guarded.

Let’s pause to say nearly every client that has called TMAP has experienced an incident compelling them to reach out for such help. In Axis’ case, it was a disgusting letter sent to the company CEO describing the future rape and murder of his wife and children. Even scarier, the letter demonstrated specific knowledge of his family’s schedule and their daily whereabouts.

This is the crisis TMAP jumped into.

My firm’s first step was to determine just how serious a threat Charles posed. We quickly gained a picture of a troubled man via interviewing coworkers. We then leveraged federal contacts to gain intel on his military career—he did have the skills to pull off exactly what he was threatening.

Coordinating with law enforcement in multiple jurisdictions enabled us to predict Charles’ next step. (Such collaboration was easy for TMAP to pull off due to our extensive law enforcement background and track record with police and agencies at the local, state, and federal level.)

We soon discovered the clue that broke the case wide open.

Charles had just mailed another threatening letter. Only this time he screwed up. Until now, Charles had been careful to make his communications untraceable. Letters were sent from rural locations, and he wore gloves to avoid fingerprints. Meanwhile, threatening calls came from burner phones.

This time his latest letter was postmarked from Indiana. From research, we knew he hailed from this Midwestern state. Once we arrived in Indiana, we learned the reason for Charles’ return. His mom just passed, and he went home to attend her funeral. Through surveillance, our agents found he was staying in her house as he argued with attorneys over his mother’s will. Clearly in an agitated state, our team also observed firearms in Charles’ possession.

In the Hollywood version, we would bust down Charles’ door, going in guns a-blazin’. In the real world, having a known and armed threat actor meant it was time to call in the cavalry. Our team contacted the FBI as sending threats from Indiana to California made it a federal matter. The FBI picked up Charles at his mom’s home. The Feds also found unsent letters offering more gruesome details of his plan—including dates to harm the CEO and his family.

Once apprehended, Charles faced a litany of charges based on credible threats. For Axis, relief was swift and immeasurable. The head of the company and his family could rest easy knowing they were no longer in danger. Management and employees could go about their jobs again without fearing an assault orchestrated by Charles, let alone worry about an attack on a client, the sort of nightmare that could force a security firm into bankruptcy.

Workplace violence is something every employer must guard against. Anytime you mix staff and add in the stress of work, there’s a chance tempers will fray—that anger will boil to the surface. In fact, the problem is expected to increase as more Americans return to work after the COVID pandemic. And although threats can often be resolved through standard human resources actions, this isn’t always the case. When your organization faces a true emergency, your first step should be to call TMAP to resolve your crisis.

Why? Toxic situations related to the workplace can turn lethal in a heartbeat—even if the problem employee no longer works there. It takes a team with the right background, expertise, and law enforcement skills to resolve these situations before they turn ugly. We know we’ve done our job when the threat actor is pacified, and the client doesn’t show up on the evening news—for all the wrong reasons.

?????????Is your company or family facing serious threats? When it comes to something potentially explosive, you need outside professionals with law enforcement expertise to identify, evaluate, and defuse a dangerous situation before it can turn into a tragedy. Please contact TMAP today to learn more.