Amy Rose F.

Abalunan

When the Workplace Becomes a Crime Scene

I. Introduction
On September 08, 2009, a graduate student studying pharmacology and a

researcher working in Yale School of Medicine’s Department named Annie Le went

missing one week before she planned to get married. According to the Yale’s building

security footage, she was last seen entering the building and failed to return home that

evening. Annie Le did not leave the building. Authorities immediately closed it off and

Le’s body was found hidden inside the wall of Yale’s building where she worked five

days later. On September 17, police arrested Raymond Clark III, a lab technician who’d

been working in the building on the day that Le disappeared. Raymond Clark is being

held on $3 million bail and awaiting trial.

II. Issues underlying the problem

New Haven police chief James Lewis is on record saying, “This is not about urban

crime, university crime, domestic crime, but an issue of workplace violence.

Investigators have, however penetrated together a few clues from a combination of

Clark’s job description and in his general behavior in the workplace.

Employees misinterpretation that may result to workplace violence depends on the

workplace situation of an organization, its relationship towards other employees. At Yale,

there are two distinct group of workers - the researcher and the technician. The problem

is Yale’s workers had much greater importance for work, do their job and don’t have

enough time to interrelate with each other. Although, there job requires them to do

specific task but does not mean not to engage, collaborate or interact to others. This

condition may however occur a workplace violence because of the current

organizational setting.
Some researchers charged Raymond Clark as a “control freak” and was
sometimes discourteous to researchers - including Annie Le - whom he viewed as

careless in treatment of the animals.

III. Alternative Solutions to the problem
To help lessen the workplace violence in an organization, the following measures /

solutions may be applicable to Yale School of Medicine:

 Creation and implementation of workplace violence policy.
-Create a policy involving each level of organization. Communicate with the

employees about the new policy. Put a system in a place to record all acts of

violence by creating an incident report. Set-up procedures to handle complaints and

finally establish measures to support the victims and the alleged criminals. Organize

awareness and training sessions with each department to facilitate better

discussion about the policy new measures.

 Modification of working environment through building a good relationship

among employees.
Yale’s working environment must adapt or build good relationship among

employees Because it is important to engage, collaborate and get along with others

while working. It will make them open and honest with each other and encourage

them of having social relationship and communicate of knowing better in order to

work better not as individual but as good team

 Review security measures.
Management should identify areas that are weak because of ineffective lighting,

storage or use of harmful chemicals or equipment in the laboratory that could be

used in the commitment of crime or violence. Management may consider of

installing more surveillance cameras throughout the work place to ensure that every

moves and events that are going on are being recorded and may be used as strong

evidence for crime like Annie Le’s case. This means would provide a more safe

environment for employees.

IV. Conclusion
Work place violence is an issue which is becoming a growing concern around the

globe. Many researches provide of the many factors while it is expected to happen in an

organization. In case of Yale, there should be a review on their existing policy if

management already created the work place violence policy or

create/establish/implement if not existed in code of conduct of an organization. By

organizing awareness and training session that will educate them on the importance of

the policy.

V. Recommendations
Whether work place violence is actually on the rise or not, it’s still a good time to

revisit the subject, review the organization’s policy and make necessary changes to

ensure you are prepared. It is vital that you are proactive in implementing methods to

prevent workplace violence from occurring in your work place. Organization with both

strong internal communication and supervision who are trained to respond to

inappropriate behavior are less likely to suffer work place violence. Employees only feel

safe to report violence or threatening co-workers when their organization consistently

acts on small problems before such problem become major ones. Therefore, building a

culture of two-way communication and exhibiting a “zero-tolerance” policy toward

forcefulness and bullying is critical to a healthy work place.

VI. Factual Experience

I never had an experience of crime in a work place like what happen in case, not

that too . I think the best work place violence I encountered for the purpose of sharing

factual experience was when I got to worked in a Hotel.

There is this kind of bad attitude that our boss possessed, she likes to assign duties

beyond our capacity, so we always ask her knowledge whenever needed. Problem arise

when conversation between them in the office about the accomplishment of the job
given to her. Our boss, shakes her head with the thing happened during the operation.

Until arguments and bad words came out from her that no one expects comes from a

professional like her.

That time, I felt a sympathy with my workmate, she was emotionally violated that

kind of work place violence that discussed in this chapter. Because our hotel is just a

small hotel, management don’t give more emphasis on making policy to correct violence

most especially it was an employer-employee problem. And as an employee, we just

have to follow and follow.

In cases like this, whether a business is big or small, management should not

tolerate work place violence and must give immediate action to prevent

misunderstanding and deputes within the work place.