Woman's Alleged Shooting Spree Rarity in Workplace Violence

(Sept. 10) -- The woman police say went on a deadly shooting rampage at a Pennsylvania factory Thursday night represents a rarity in the annals of workplace violence.

Shootings like the one in which a woman is alleged to have killed two people and wounded two others at a Kraft Foods plant in Philadelphia account for fewer than 5 percent of the cases that have been recorded during the past 30 years, workplace violence expert Dr. Park Dietz told AOL News.

"If we look at all of the workplace multiple victim shootings, there is a significant difference between male employees committing such attacks and female employees doing it," said Dietz, founder of the Threat Assessment Group.

Police have yet to comment on a possible motive in the Philadelphia shooting, but the alleged attacker, identified by The Philadelphia Inquirer as Yvonne Hiller, 43, had been suspended from her job following an altercation with co-workers.

"She just had some run-ins with them and imagined different things that were going on that really couldn't be proven," Kraft employee Randy Gaines told NBC Philadelphia.

Hiller, who had worked at Kraft for 15 years, was suspended and then escorted out of the building Thursday. According to The Associated Press, police said roughly 10 minutes later she drove a car through a security barrier and re-entered the building with a handgun and opened fire.

Three people were shot during the spree; two of them, Tanya Renee Wilson, 47, and Latonya Sharon Brown, 36, died as a result of their injuries. Bryant A. Dalton, 39, was shot in the neck and is hospitalized in critical condition. A fourth victim remains hospitalized; the cause of that person's injury has not been released.

According to the AP, Hiller was taken into police custody about an hour after the shootings started. She has been charged with two counts of murder, attempted murder and other charges.

"This case is a vivid reminder that women can commit violence in the workplace," Dietz said. "Research has shown that clinical evaluators tend to underestimate the violence potential of women, and it is likely that [other people] do as well."

Dietz said that as authorities and company officials investigate the incident, they will find that the tragedy could have been averted.

"In most cases, and we do quite a few of these either in connection with the criminal prosecution or the civil litigation, one or more of the following problems happen. Problem No. 1 is that someone was hired who probably shouldn't have been. Problem No. 2 is that early signs of trouble were not responded to adequately. And then, quite often what happens, those problems escalate through several more stages that again are ignored until, ultimately, it is too bad to ignore."

Two notable cases involving women and workplace violence include those of Jennifer San Marco and Amy Bishop.

In January 2006, San Marco, a 44-year-old former postal worker with a history of psychological problems, killed a neighbor and six former co-workers at a mail processing plant in Goleta, Calif., before shooting herself to death.

Bishop, a University of Alabama biology professor, allegedly killed three colleagues and wounded three others in a February shooting rampage. Bishop has been charged with three counts of capital murder and three counts of attempted murder. She is also accused of shooting her brother 24 years ago.

According to Dietz, incidents such as the Kraft shooting can be prevented. When serious misconduct occurs, the problem needs to be handled quickly and appropriately, he said.

"Sometimes, people who try to intervene are too heavy handed or they humiliate the person in such a way as marching them out with an escort in front of their peers," Dietz said. "That is the typical story time after time for the 30 years I have been studying these kinds of cases. We have learned how to prevent these incidents every step of the way, but the employer has to want to prevent it, and that's the story."