Before the Threat: How Behavioral Threat Assessment and Prevention-Focused Safety Management Can Stop Workplace Violence Before It Starts

[00:00:00] You know, when most of us think about workplace violence, we tend to picture it like a lightning strike. Right, like it just drops out of nowhere. Exactly, just this sudden terrifying event dropping out of a clear blue sky. The common narrative is always that someone just, you know, snaps. Yeah, that's what everyone says. But what if that entire narrative is just fundamentally flawed? What if instead of a lightning strike there is almost always this long, very visible trail of breadcrumbs leading right up to the front door?

[00:00:27] Well, the forensic reconstruction of these events completely shatters that whole illusion of the sudden snap. I mean, we assume violence is unpredictable because that's exactly how it feels to the victims in that exact moment, right? Oh, absolutely. The impact is a total shock. Right. But when you look at the actual data, when you trace the timeline backward, you see the buildup. The warning signs are almost always there, just kind of hiding in plain sight, often for years.

[00:00:54] And that buildup is exactly what we are getting into today. Welcome to the deep dive, everyone. Good to be here. Our mission today is to equip you with basically the ultimate shortcut to understanding how organizations can actually spot and stop these tragedies before they happen. Which is so critical right now. It really is. And we are pulling insights from some incredible new research today. Specifically, there's a standout piece by Dr. Jonathan H. Westover called Before the Threat.

[00:01:21] It was just published this month, October 2026, in the Human Capital Leadership Review. Yeah. And we're looking at a massive stack of fresh data to ground this discussion. There's a newly released October guide from the U.S. Secret Service's National Threat Assessment Center or NTAC, which provides threat analysis data specifically tailored for employers. Okay. Wow. The Secret Service is directly advising employers now.

[00:01:46] Yes, exactly. And on top of that, we are analyzing shifting global laws, including new international labor protections and California's pending Senate Bill 553. Right. The California mandate. Yeah. That piece of legislation is critical because it mandates that employers actually create, implement, and maintain comprehensive site-specific workplace violence prevention plans. It's no longer just a dusty compliance binder. It's an integrated management system.

[00:02:11] Okay. Let's unpack this because before we can even talk about preventing a threat, we really have to understand what the threat actually looks like in practice. Right. We have to shatter the illusion first. Exactly. So the sources categorize workplace violence into four distinct types, which helps break down the mechanics of who is actually committing the violence and why. Yeah. And that typology is essential. So type one involves criminal intent, like a robbery by someone who has no legitimate relationship to the business at all. Right. Like a masked intruder.

[00:02:41] Yeah. Then type two is customer or client violence. So this would be a patient assaulting a triage nurse or maybe a frustrated passenger attacking a transit worker. Which happens a lot, sadly. It does. Then type three is worker on worker. So a current or former employee targeting their colleagues. And type four is personal relationship spillover, which usually takes the form of domestic violence that literally follows an employee to work.

[00:03:08] And understanding those four types is so important because the mechanism of violence in each category is entirely different. Meaning the mitigation strategy has to be entirely different. You know. So you can't just buy one security system and call it a day. Exactly. You cannot apply a one size fits all solution here. Securing a retail store against a type one armed robbery involves cash management and physical barriers. Right. But that does absolutely nothing to prevent a type three escalating conflict between two coworkers who are sitting in adjacent cubicles.

[00:03:38] That makes total sense. But despite those differences, they all contribute to this really grim statistical reality. The fatal toll in the U.S. remains stubbornly high. I mean, there were 470 workplace homicides in 2024, which is an increase from 458 in 2023. Wow. So it's going up. Yeah. And firearms account for 83% of those fatalities. Those mortality numbers are just heavy.

[00:04:02] But looking at the non-fatal violence data reveals a completely different and arguably more insidious daily reality, right? Oh, definitely. The non-fatal stats tell a whole different story. Because the brunt of non-fatal violence isn't necessarily happening where people might assume. Health care and social assistance workers accounted for nearly 73% of all private industry intentional injury cases in 2021 and 2022. 73%? 73%.

[00:04:31] That is just staggering. It is. And the numbers for psychiatric aids are even wilder. They face an injury rate of almost 544 cases per 10,000 workers. Which is just astronomical. I have to imagine that's driven by the fundamental mechanics of the job, right? Like they are in close physical proximity to individuals who are experiencing acute mental health crises or perhaps suffering from cognitive decline. Exactly. And all of this is happening within environments that are frequently understaffed.

[00:04:58] The systemic mechanisms driving those type 2 health care injuries are a perfect example of why a proactive approach is necessary. These workers are tasked with caring for our most vulnerable populations, often during the absolute worst days of those patients' lives. Right. Emotions are running incredibly high. Exactly. So the violence isn't random. It's a predictable outcome of high-stress environments that lack adequate environmental controls.

[00:05:22] Where patients might be in altered mental states and staff just lack the physical support to safely manage aggressive behavior. So going back to that myth of the sudden snap, when I was reading through the Secret Service data regarding type 3 worker-on-worker violence, I actually jotted down an analogy. Oh. Let's hear it. It feels a lot like an earthquake. Like for the victims, the ground shakes suddenly, right? It feels totally instantaneous and unpredictable. Right. The shock factor. Yeah.

[00:05:48] But beneath the surface, the tectonic plates of grievance, financial stress, and personal failure have been grinding together for years, accumulating pressure before the actual rupture. That is a brilliant way to look at it because when the Secret Service analyzed 50 specific workplace attacks, they found that 92% of the perpetrators had experienced notable life stressors within five years of the attack. 92%. 92%. And almost all of them.

[00:06:14] These were things like financial ruin, divorce, loss of housing, or a massive professional demotion. So the pressure was clearly building. Yes. And furthermore, 78% of them had a history of behavior that actively concerned others around them. They were struggling. They were externalizing their blame. And, well, people noticed. Right. So the plates were grinding loudly long before the violence occurred. Exactly.

[00:06:37] So if the data proves there is this trail of warning signs, you know, the grinding plates, the next logical step is figuring out how organizations can spot that trail. But how do you do that without turning management into the thought police? Well, you have to be very careful there. Because if there's no useful demographic profile for these attackers, which the Secret Service Guide makes very clear, I'm guessing organizations have to focus entirely on observable actions rather than traits. Right? Spot on.

[00:07:06] That brings us to behavioral threat assessment and management, or BTAM. You simply cannot screen for a quote unquote type of person based on age, race, or background. It doesn't work. It doesn't. Relying on demographic profiles is not only heavily biased and discriminatory, it is completely ineffective at stopping violence. BTAM focuses exclusively on what a person is doing or saying. It looks for observable warning behaviors. Okay.

[00:07:34] So instead of asking, is this an angry looking person? You're asking, has this person started communicating an intent to harm someone, even indirectly? Precisely. I think the literature calls that leakage, right? Where they might not threaten the victim to their face, but they tell a different coworker or they post a disturbing manifesto on a forum, basically leaking their violent ideation out into the world. Yes. Leakage is one of the most critical warning behaviors.

[00:08:00] It's the conscious or unconscious communication of an intent to do harm. But BTAM teams also look for pathway behaviors. Like what? Like, is the employee trying to acquire a weapon they have no legitimate use for? Are they hyper fixated on past mass casualty events? Or are they suddenly giving away their possessions or saying final goodbyes? The focus is strictly on behavioral data. And relying solely on that behavioral data actually prevents the bias you mentioned earlier.

[00:08:30] It really does. The Virginia public school study cited in Dr. Jonathan H. Westover's article provides excellent proof of concept for this. Oh, right. The mandate in Virginia. Yeah. After Virginia mandated threat assessments, trained multidisciplinary teams handled 1,865 cases. And by focusing purely on behaviors like weapon possession or explicit leakage, the team successfully distinguished serious imminent threats from just transient minor threats. That's a huge sample size. It is.

[00:08:59] And the data showed they did it without racial or gender bias affecting the serious threat determinations. A properly trained team evaluates the risk objectively. Okay, but this leads me to something in the secret service guide that I really need to challenge. Go for it. Wait. If an employee is exhibiting these warning behaviors and they are identified as a serious threat, my immediate instinct as a manager is to cut their badge access, fire them, and just get them out of the building. Which is most people's instinct, yeah. Right.

[00:09:27] But the guide warns against abrupt termination. That feels totally counterintuitive. Why on earth would you keep a known threat on the payroll? Well, what's fascinating here is that firing someone without a broader management plan can actually act as the catalyst that accelerates the violence. Wait, really? Yes. To understand why, you have to look at the psychology of the grievance pathway. You are dealing with someone who is already in crisis, right? Someone who feels profoundly wronged and victimized. Okay.

[00:09:57] I'm following. What's fascinating? If you strip away their livelihood, their daily structure, and often their primary social identity through an abrupt termination, you basically remove their last tether to society. You confirm their belief that they are being persecuted. Oh, wow. So you're taking someone who is already convinced they have nothing left to lose and you're actively taking away the last thing they actually had. Exactly.

[00:10:19] And the article highlights a tragic case where a man was called into an HR meeting to be terminated and he shot and killed four coworkers right there in the meeting. That is horrifying. It is. So half of the employee attackers in the secret service study had disciplinary records. Now, management and HR are often the ones holding the warning signs. And if you just fire the person and march them out the door and say, not our problem anymore, you haven't neutralized the threat. You've just displaced it. Yes, you've just displaced it.

[00:10:48] And in many cases, you've escalated their timeline. Separation might be necessary, sure. But it has to be carefully orchestrated. Right. Like asking, like, who is delivering the news or if professional security is present? Exactly. What psychological support, severance or employee assistance is being offered on their way out to give them a softer landing. So you really have to manage the trajectory of the threat, not just discard the human being. Precisely. That makes sense.

[00:11:16] But it relies entirely on management actually knowing the warning behaviors exist in the first place. Like these threat assessment teams sound brilliant in theory, but they are utterly useless if the people on the floor aren't reporting the leakage. Why is it so hard to get people to speak up? It remains the weakest link in the entire prevention chain. An FBI study of active shooters show that in 51% of cases, the shooter actually leaked their intent to a third party. Half of them. Yes.

[00:11:43] But in 54% of those cases, the bystanders who observed the concerning behavior did absolutely nothing. They didn't alert HR. They didn't call security. More than half observed a warning sign and stayed totally silent. I have to imagine that comes down to either a fear of retaliation. You know, nobody wants to ruin a co-worker's life or be labeled a snitch or just a sense of absolute futility. Like nothing will change anyway. Exactly.

[00:12:10] They assume management won't do anything even if they do report it. The International Labor Organization conducted a massive global survey on workplace violence. And their findings align exactly with those assumptions. Victims and bystanders stay silent primarily out of fear for their professional reputation, fear of the aggressor or a deep-seated belief that reporting is just a bureaucratic waste of time. It's like a car dashboard where the check engine light comes on, right? The mechanic ignores it.

[00:12:38] And eventually you just put a piece of black tape over the light so you don't have to look at it anymore. That's a great analogy. The engine is still going to blow up. You've just chosen to be blind to the dashboard. Yeah. And if we connect this to the bigger picture of organizational culture, we are talking about psychological safety. This is a framework pioneered by Harvard researcher Amy Edmondson. Okay. Psychological safety. Right. It means employees believe the environment is safe for interpersonal risk taking.

[00:13:07] If an organization treats its threat assessment team like a punitive disciplinary tribunal where reporting a struggling coworker means that coworker instantly loses their job and their health insurance, employees will instinctively protect each other. Oh, for sure. They'll just close ranks. Exactly. They will starve the system of the very data it needs to save lives. They need to trust that reporting is a pathway to getting a coworker help, not a fast track to ruin. But building that trust takes so much time.

[00:13:36] There was a detail in the sources about a randomized trial in Detroit area hospitals where some hospital units were given their own localized violence reporting data. Yes, the Detroit study. And the claim was that within six months, those units saw their violent incident rates drop by over 50%. I have to push back on that a bit. Oh, why is that? Well, wait, just handing frontline nurses a spreadsheet of data reduced violence by 50%? That sounds a little too magical. How does looking at data stop a patient in a psych ward from throwing a punch?

[00:14:06] Ah. Well, it wasn't the mere act of looking at the data. It was the mechanism of empowerment that accompanied it. The intervention didn't just give them a spreadsheet. It actually allowed the frontline units to create and implement their own local action plans based on that data. Oh, so they had the authority to change things. Exactly.

[00:14:25] For example, if the data showed that assaults spiked during shift changes when the floor was distracted, the unit had the authority to alter their shift change protocols, adjust staffing overlap or modify patient intake procedures during those specific hours. That is incredible. Yeah. By decentralizing the power and letting the people closest to the hazard design the solution, they created a highly responsive, effective mitigation strategy. Okay.

[00:14:50] So if the human element, like the software of psychological safety and reporting, is that crucial, where does the hardware fit in? Because management loves throwing millions of dollars at physical security and technology. They really do. Right. It's an easier fix on paper. Right. We read about the Ohio State Wexner Medical Center spending $9 million on metal detectors and increased security staffing. And in a single year, they kept out 9,500 weapons.

[00:15:17] And critically, because they paired that massive hardware investment with a behavioral emergency response team, which is a human system, they saw formal reports of violent incidents dropped by 30%. So the hardware worked because the software supported it. Exactly. The hardware functioned effectively because the human operational procedures supported it. Now, contrast that with Brooklyn Behavioral Hospital in Pennsylvania. What happened there?

[00:15:43] They were cited by OSHA, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, for systemic failures. Their safety policies and emergency alert walkie talkies existed on paper, but they failed catastrophically in practice. Like they just didn't work when they needed them to. Right. Staff either didn't have the walkie talkies, the batteries were dead, or the emergency codes just weren't understood. Wow.

[00:16:06] So if physical hardware like walkie talkies fails because of human error or negligence, what about technology that is explicitly designed to capture human interaction? Like you hear about body worn cameras and de-escalation training constantly pitched as the ultimate solutions. Yeah. They are heavily marketed as standalone fixes, but the empirical evidence just does not support that. Really? Not even body cameras? No.

[00:16:31] A major Rand Europe study evaluating body worn cameras for ambulance staff found they are not reliable as a primary prevention tool. I mean, they might aid in post-incident prosecution, but they don't reliably stop an assault in progress. That makes sense. It's courting the bad thing, not stopping the bad thing. Exactly. Furthermore, the Cochran Review, which is the gold standard for medical and scientific research reviews, looked closely at de-escalation training. And what did they find?

[00:16:59] They found that while taking a seminar definitely boosts the workers' confidence in artificial classroom scenarios, there is very low-quality evidence that it actually reduces the rate of real-world assaults. Okay, here's where it gets really interesting to me.

[00:17:15] If a retail worker or an emergency room nurse goes through a two-hour seminar on de-escalation, and then later gets assaulted on a chronically understaffed shift by a highly agitated individual, does management just look at them and say, well, you didn't de-escalate properly? Unfortunately, yes. That happens a lot. Because if so, that just shifts the blame entirely onto the victim instead of fixing the fundamentally broken system that put them in danger in the first place.

[00:17:44] That is the precise trap many organizations fall into. Training cannot carry the weight of a hazardous environment. You cannot train away the inherent risk of a poorly lit parking lot, a clinic operating at half-staff, or a retail store with no physical barriers. Right. You can't out-train a bad environment. Exactly.

[00:18:03] In the UK, a retailer called The Co-op recently invested 70 million pounds in security measures, including these high-tech fog cannons that instantly fill a store with thick smoke to disorient robbers. Fog cannons? That sounds intense. It is. But safety professionals will tell you that even fog cannons only work within the strict hierarchy of controls. Okay, walk me through that hierarchy. Sure. You start by trying to eliminate the hazard entirely.

[00:18:31] If you can't, you use engineering controls, like physical barriers, secure access doors, or those fog cannons, to physically separate the worker from the threat. Okay. Step two. Got it. Then you use administrative controls, like altering staffing levels or changing operating hours. Only at the very bottom of that hierarchy, basically as a last resort, do you rely on the worker's individual actions, personal protective equipment, or de-escalation training. Wow. So we've built this robust safety net for inside the building, right?

[00:19:00] We've got the threat assessment teams monitoring the behavioral data. We've implemented the hierarchy of controls. We've got the physical security. But what happens when the threat doesn't originate at work? Ah, yes. Exactly. When it commutes in. Exactly. What happens when it commutes in with the employee? I'm talking about type four violence, domestic violence spillover. This is frequently the invisible threat in corporate environments, but the statistics absolutely demand attention. Because it's not just a personal issue anymore. No, it's a workplace hazard.

[00:19:31] Data from the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, or NIOSH, reveals that 33% of workplace homicides of U.S. women were committed by a personal relation, most often an intimate partner. A third of all workplace homicides for women. Yes. And crucially, over half of those intimate partner workplace homicides occur in parking lots and public building areas.

[00:19:54] Because the building itself might have badge access and security guards, but the parking lot is this open, predictable interception point. Exactly. The abuser knows exactly what time their victim clocks out and walks to their car. Furthermore, the Secret Service NTAC analysis found that 53% of all targeted workplace attackers had a prior history of domestic violence. Wait, 53% of all the attackers? Yes.

[00:20:18] It is simultaneously a direct, lethal threat to the specific victim, and a massive behavioral red flag for broader targeted violence against the whole organization. You always hear managers use that old corporate cliche, leave your personal life at the door, right? But safety planning can't just be giving an employee a pamphlet. Definitely not. If the abuser knows their schedule and location, I'd imagine HR has to actually change their shifts, alter their routines, or step up physical security.

[00:20:47] How can an employer possibly claim a domestic abuser in the parking lot isn't a workplace hazard? This raises a very important question about legal and moral exposure. Employers can no longer claim that Type 4 violence is exclusively a personal matter beyond their jurisdiction. The courts are stepping in? Yes. The article cites the Integra Health Management case, which serves as a massive legal precedent. An employee was fatally stabbed during a home visit by a client who had a documented history of violent behavior.

[00:21:17] Oh, that's awful. The Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission, the OSHRC, affirmed a severe citation against the employer for failing to adequately protect the worker. The message from the courts and regulators is unambiguous here. Silence and inaction leave both the victim and the broader workforce exposed, and the employer will be held liable. So what does effective safety planning actually look like in a domestic violence context?

[00:21:42] Well, it means confidentially changing an employee's schedule so their movements aren't predictable to the abuser. It involves providing dedicated parking escorts. That makes total sense. And it means coordinating actively with reception and building security to enforce protective orders, ensuring the front desk has a photograph of the abuser, and strict protocols on what to do if they attempt to enter the facility. It is an active, ongoing management process. So what does this all mean for you listening?

[00:22:10] We've covered a tremendous amount of ground today. We've dismantled the myth of the sudden snap, explored behavioral threat assessments, the psychology of the bystander effect, the hierarchy of physical controls, and the chilling reality of domestic violence spillover. It's a lot to process. It is. But whether you are a facility manager, an HR director, or just someone who wants to feel safe when you swipe your badge in the morning, the core takeaway is a necessary shift in mindset.

[00:22:38] Violence prevention is no longer about just reacting to sudden incidents. It is about proactively managing observable risks and intervening on that grievance pathway. And the dividing line between a successful intervention and a tragedy is organizational discipline. It is the difference between having a safety policy sitting in a three-ring binder and having an empowered culture that actually protects people in the real world. And has to be lived, not just filed away. Exactly.

[00:23:05] Upcoming regulations, like California's mandate, and the new global guidelines are going to force this issue. They are making this proactive behavioral approach a legal requirement, not just a theoretical best practice. The days of treating workplace violence as an unpredictable act of nature are definitively over. It really is a new era of accountability. But as we wrap up, I want to leave you with a final thought to mull over, something that really stuck with me from the data we looked at today. Oh, what's that?

[00:23:35] Well, the statistics showed a distinct dip in workplace violence fatalities in 2020. And the reason is pretty obvious, right? The pandemic forced millions of people to shift to remote work. Right. The physical workplace was basically empty. Exactly. Now, as hybrid and fully remote work become permanent structures for huge swaths of the global population, the very definition of the workplace has completely changed. For many of us, the workplace is now our living room or a table at a local coffee shop. That's very true.

[00:24:04] Our interactions with our coworkers and managers are largely reduced to pixels on a screen and text in a chat box.

[00:24:40] We'll catch you on the next deep dive. We'll catch you on the next deep dive.