August 6th, 2010
Massacre at Manchester: Weak Connections to Bullying
The massacre by Omar Thornton at Hartford Distributors in Manchester, CT is a “teachable moment” but not necessarily to advance awareness about workplace bullying as some claim.
Despite murky details, we feel confident only about following:
• Thornton was shown surveillance video (of a good quality according to Thornton) of stealing inventory at a scheduled morning disciplinary meeting the morning of the massacre
Skeptics wonder about the tape, but there was more than one witness to the showing. This is not to say that employers do not manufacture “evidence” of wrongdoing. They simply lie about events, making a rational defense impossible. However, they rarely go to the extent of producing a doctored videotape. This is a small business not in the tech business. Thornton was not a repeat offender, so they likely did not make such an expensive investment.
He was accused of stealing inventory and selling it.
• the beer delivery truck driver (Thornton) was given the option to resign or be fired (not really alternatives) with his union president, Bryan Cirigliano at his side
A humiliating moment to be sure for anyone. At least his Weingarten rights were preserved. Not much the union could have done if theft was confirmed.
• Thornton was being escorted away from the meeting room when he began shooting
This is the infamous HR “exit parade,” the “perp walk,” the banishment. We’re not sure if HR or security did the escorting. It is another form of employer humiliation.
• both employer and the union said that Thornton had not filed any previous complaints or grievances
Harassed workers rarely complain. The history of complainants being retaliated against ripples through the company grapevine and becomes legend. Fear alone suppresses the complaints. The ones who abuse the employer complaint/union grievance processes do so multiple times. They use the policies and contracts to harass the employer. They drive the union reps crazy to the point they start to refuse to file grievances that tend to embarrass the union. If Thornton had not filed formally before, he was not a chronic filer. Could he actually have been harassed and not filed? Certainly, for the reasons stated.
Therefore, the employer and union hiding behind the absence of formal complaints or grievances by Thornton is not proof that he was not harassed. In hindsight (which all of this speculation is), he would have been taken more seriously had he filed.
• Hannah’s mother, Joanne Hannah, claimed that Thornton told her daughter he had complained both to a company supervisor and a union rep
• Thornton’s girlfriend, Kristi Hannah, claimed that Thornton said he had complained to his union rep
If a union rep or steward does not like the member, he or she can block that member’s route to redress. By hearing a verbal complaint and failing to file a grievance, the rep keeps the disrespected member in her or his place. It’s not right, but it happens frequently. Union members often report to us that their union disregarded them as much as HR did. Did Thornton lie about telling his rep? We’ll never know until a union member comes forward with the truth. Unfortunately, he may have told the president he shot and killed that morning carrying the truth to the grave.
• Thornton’s girlfriend, Kristi Hannah, claimed that Thornton said he had complained to her about racism
She said he showed her cell phone photos of crude drawings on the workplace bathroom wall of a noose around his neck with the inscription “Kill the n-word” and reported overhearing a co-worker say he wanted “that n-word out of there.” Ross Hollander, the company owner, said “I can state to you unequivocally no racism claim was ever alleged.” Of course, this would be the post-event stance if the work environment was racist. The craziness in our current political world seems to embrace a return to racist times. There was a noose incident in mid-state Illinois this year that enraged the state NAACP because its perpetrators experienced no consequences. Believe it. It happens, and in the north.
• Thornton called the State Police 911 dispatcher to admit he did the shooting and that it was over (except for his suicide)
During the call, Thornton described the two handguns used to kill eight others as “two of my favorites.” He legally owned six registered firearms. Why in the post-massacre analysis does the media never question the incendiary mix of readily accessible lethal weapons and an emotionally volatile state. He also told the dispatcher, “We’re just talking, you’re gonna play something on the news, you know I’m gonna be popular…” This is a common theme to shooters. Their world was out of their control, the massacre is their way of restoring control. Thornton said “They treat me bad over here and all the other black employees bad over here too…So I took it into my own hands and handled the problem.”
Given the little we know, it is dangerous to speculate that bullying of Omar Thornton at Harford Distributors was the cause. Here’s why:
• bullied individuals do not react automatically with anger as some believe
Anger would have been a sign that he was relatively bullyproof. He would not have been afraid to confront. Targets shirk from confrontation. That’s why it is silly to ask them to confront, or even learn to confront.
This not to be confused with Thornton potentially feeling powerless to counter whatever racism was directed his way. There were many against his few. We don’t know how the other black employees acted toward him. Were they also victims? Why or why not?
Thornton’s anger could have been a simple frustration-aggression response with little to no emotional component. Bullying involves emotional injury.
The initial reaction of targets of workplace bullying is often to turn inward. Personal shame (the result of attempts to humiliate you) dictates actions. Feelings are kept inside and rarely shared, even with partners. Only after a long period of time does anger bubble to the surface. The anger most likely comes from the symptoms of hypervigilance associated with PTSD. Hence the anger and rage displayed by traumatized military veterans that puts spouses in danger of violence. PTSD is often delayed and the effects last long after the traumatizing events. But notice how the source (the emotional injury) is different than a more spontaneous, hair-trigger response when someone without PTSD explodes. In the latter case, it may have more to do with an inability to control violent impulses.
• bullied targets are gentle souls, too “nice” for their own good, non-confrontive
Not sure about the research here, but wondering how many bullied targets are gun aficionados. Thornton loved his guns to the point that the handguns he took into the facility that fateful day were two of his “favorites.” Therefore, he didn’t own guns to have them gather dust in a case. On the day of the shooting, he had a shotgun in his car. Hand-eye coordination fans fire virtual guns in video games. Gun nuts use them not just to keep a sharp eye. They love the power gun use conveys to owners. Targets are victims of the abuse of power, rarely its practitioners. Who knows, maybe targets love guns for their power because they are powerless at work. All untested hypotheses.
• Thornton had a plan to restore order to his world, was not insane
This was about seeking justice to him. He didn’t spray the workplace with bullets. He targeted some for death and avoided other individuals. He chased one co-worker outside the building and had to shoot his way back in to keep up the slaughter. He also spoke on his cell for 10 minutes with his mother. She was unable to talk him out of suicide.
• the causal link between a toxic work environment and massacre as solution is an indirect connection at best
As facts filter in, there may have been a set of conditions at Hartford Distributors that could drive a sane person to consider killing others as a solution (not if that person has no access to an arsenal of weapons). For example, our academic colleague Ken Westhues posts a report about the Virginia Tech massacre. That student was tormented by one of the professors.
There does always seem to be a “story behind the story.” Our society (read superficial media coverage) prefers to discount all shooters as nuts. They all have chosen extreme solutions, but they were not all previously insane. Nor were most insane when shooting. The explanations are complicated because they involve at least four parts:
- an alienated individual (either who started that way or was driven to the state)
- a toxic work environment created and sustained by the employer
- the failure to find allies at work (from diffident co-workers, obstinate union reps who refuse to engage, indifferent employer/HR reps), and
-the availability of weapons.
Kneejerk post hoc analysis is inadequate. The documentary Murder By Proxy: How America Went Postal explores these factors to understand the why “going postal” happens so much. Thoughtful commentary by criminologist Alan Fox (Northeastern University) and psychiatrist Michael Welner provides the right level of analysis. I also address the role of work environment in the film. The film is 80+ minutes long. TV news segments about the shooting are usually no longer than 3 minutes!
So, let’s be careful to not equate workers targeted by bullying with shooters in workplace massacres. Not everyone with PTSD injures or kills his spouse. Not everyone with bipolar disorder is a danger to society. Bullied targets are more likely to retreat from society than to mount a guns-blazing deadly assault on peers.
Tags: Connecticut, employee theft, going postal, Hartford Distributors, Manchester, massacre, murders, Omar Thornton, shootings, Task Force on Workplace Bullying, Teamsters union, workplace bullying, workplace homicide
This entry was posted on Friday, August 6th, 2010 at 12:07 pm and is filed under Social Justice. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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If I’m not mistaken, his union rep was the first person he shot and killed.
What’s that telling you?
(Part 1)“Anger would have been a sign that he was relatively bullyproof. He would not have been afraid to confront. Targets shirk from confrontation. That’s why it is silly to ask them to confront, or even learn to confront.”
I totally disagree with this statement and I am stunned to find it on this blog. Some very strong people have been workplace bullied including myself. Confronting the bullies often makes everything worse as they simply step up the attack. It did take twenty months in my case before I had a melt down and I do have CFS/ME and Aspergers which would raise my risk of suicide. I am very tough and do speak up for myself, in fact this is one of the reasons I was targeted. I mostly worked in critical care of all kinds, but have worked psych, prisons, with sex offenders, and mentally ill legal offenders. Take the case of corrections officers, one of the biggest groups of bullies in the world. They often become punitive to inmates who write grievances and put them in segregation for long periods of time. These inmates are angry, but are they bullyproof? Absolutely not. Will they now be afraid to confront injustice in the prison, usually, and those who persist will be harmed. I have witnessed this from both sides.
I have witnessed many nurses being workplace bullied. Some of them turn inward and some start yelling and swearing for the first time in their lives. I am normally outspoken and at first this continued. When I got PTSD I then turned inward and tried to harm myself. It took a long time for this to happen. Not all targets are meek and mild. The facility where I was and the two in the area I live in now have for many years targeted those who are outspoken because they run the healthcare facilities down here in incompetent backwards ways. When someone comes here to work they are often shocked and start telling them they can’t continue their unsafe practices. The facility I was at did not even practice universal precautions for example. It is essentially a third world country hospital, yet there was really no good reason for this. There was a shooting at a hospital in the town I live in now due to workplace bullying. I am sure they would love to say it was because the shooter had ” an inability to control violent impulses” too, but just like the incident you discuss here family and friends say that was not the case. Most people do not know that there was also an attempted murder due to workplace bullying in this area. They kept that one hush-hush. Then another significant case, a nurse at a hospital close by was bullied by two surgeons who were compromising the infection control and they got her fired. She is also very outspoken.
As for the guns, lots of people in this country not only have guns, but love them. When I became ill with PTSD from workplace bullying I lived in bush Alaska. I do not love guns, but had a rifle for bear defense. I had thoughts of harming those who were targeting me. I was targeted in the workplace, mobbed in the village I lived in, harassed by police, judicially bullied and much more. I was also medically bullied when I went back to that facility to try and get help for the PTSD and the CFS which is of course triggered by secretion of cortisol. Rural Alaska is very ugly in a lot of ways. The anger I had was big enough to fill up the whole world. Having a medical background and using my Aspie special powers I did some research. Since I had already tried to commit suicide I was very afraid. I found out what was going on was workplace bullying and that I was high risk for suicide and murder/suicide. I had already tried to see the psychiatrist 5 times and he refused me before the suicide attempt that got me charged with felonies(I would not have been charged anywhere else). The other doctors were less than mediocre. I was on my own. I got rid of my rifle and did what I could to survive.
(Part 2)If I had not been who I am there is no telling what could have happened because these people are vicious. They would bully someone until they had PTSD and left and then say, “I’m glad she’s gone she was crazy”. I would then state, “She was not crazy when she got here.”
I had death threats on my phone which is not something new in this village. A Methodist minister had to be guarded round the clock because he wanted to change the closing time at the bars from 5AM to 2AM. They make lots of money selling booze there.
I spent my life in the service of others and had no idea a whole group of people could get together and be so evil. After I left that town the malfeasant DA got a corrupt judge to send a warrant without any evidence and had me wrongfully imprisoned resulting in my cat being starved and tortured and my property stolen or ruined. Then when my friend bailed me out I was homeless. This is when I found out prosecutors lie and public defenders don’t defend. I told them the real perp would do these things, they let him. They do the bidding of the powers that be here. Law enforcement had already told them there was no evidence and they did not think I did it. The truth is they waited until I was in the vicinity of a crime so they could do this. They wanted to shut me up, it has only made me more outspoken. None of them did a thing to rescue my cat which they knew was in peril. This is a case of serial bullies who caused a commnity mobbing which resulted in judicial, medical, newspaper, mobbing. I have found no adequate mental health care in Alaska other than Providence Hosptial in Anchorage, in fact they think workplace bullying is an insignificant thing in the rural areas. Thanks for giving them more evidence to call it something else here on the WBI blog.
If this is the kind of information WBI is going to use I think I will stop reading your blog. I find it hurtful, harmful, and very triggering. The ignorance about this issue just stuns me when coming from those who should know better. We do not have enough information to know what happened yet in this shooting. Bullying types will use the most obvious issue about a person to bully them, just like a BPD zeros in on an issue to try and make someone feel bad about themselves. From what friends and family said he was very sensitive to racism, they would have zeroed in on this and used it. Bullies don’t just practice workplace bullying, they psychologically abuse and beat their children or spouses, hate people because of their skin color or religion, it goes on and on. This man could have been overweight and they may have used that. It may turn out to technically/legally not be workplace bullying, but the tactics they use are identical. With me they changed what they harrassed me about because I ignored them. They spread all kinds of rumors and I thought it was funny and people would not believe them. I did not believe the rumors about others, in fact I would tell them they were lies and they should stop spreading them. Many people did believe the rumors no matter how illogical they were, even well educated people. I am now on disability which I was never on even when I was extremely ill with CFS/ME. I had never declared Aspergers at any job, but declared it there because I thought that was why they bullied me. It was not. They would have targeted something, anything about me because of my competence, education, sense of humor, my hard work, and because the native people in the village liked me.
Celia, We felt the need to discourage the reflexive explanation of the massacre as the bullying of Thornton. We did not take the opportunity to review all the reasons targets are selected. In fact, in EVERY presentation we make and in our book (did you read it?), we list the reasons for targethood. The most frequent reason (from our 2003 research) is independence, an unwillingness to be subservient. So, you are accurate about that. However, when you write “Bullies don’t just practice workplace bullying, they psychologically abuse and beat their children or spouses, hate people because of their skin color or religion, it goes on and on” you miss the boat. A few do, but most bullies are situational and limit it to the workplace, reflecting the power of the work environment to pull out negative behavior from most of us. Please do not subscribe to the theory that all bullies are psychopaths or disturbed individuals.
I do not think most workplace bullies are psychopaths, nor did I say that, however some are. Certainly it is clear that in the corporate world in this country we have many with no conscience. As I said there are many different types of bullies who bully in differing situations. People do not just use maladaptive means to cover their inadequacies in only one area of their life. This is one of the reasons there is much discussion about school bullies becoming workplace bullies.
From Stalking the Soul by Marie-France Hirigoyen:
“I have seen, in the course of my clinical practice, how the same abusive individuals tend to replicate destructive conduct in all areas of life: at work, in their marriage, with their children. It is this behavioral continuity that I would like to emphasize. There are individuals whose road through life is strewn with people they have wounded or irreparably damaged. This doesn’t prevent them from fooling most people and seeming to be totally adjusted social beings.”
The American economic culture supports unhealthy beliefs such as bullying, conning, manipulating, using, and harming others are normal behaviors rather than sick behaviors. Some how it has been integrated into our society that this is all ok in the workplace, politics, and corporate world and is not seen as pathological.
We do not have enough information in this situation to know exactly what stage this man was in at this point. It seems his family and friends are reporting this went on for a long time. So, how can you say his anger means he was not workplace bullied? In my case which went on for twenty months it could have also looked like I had not been workplace bullied, but I had, severely. If I had become violent the truth could have easily been twisted and without a doubt it would have. The mental health practitioners where I was were aware of the workplace bullying and had done nothing about it, in fact many of them practiced it themselves. They would have clearly misdiagnosed the whole situation. The truth would have never gotten out. This most likely occurs in most of these shooting situations and demonization occurs.
Dr Namie
I agree with most of what you have written but I beg to differ on the same sentence as raised by Celia Harrison:
“Anger would have been a sign that he was relatively bullyproof.”
Generally, targets of bullying go through an emotional rollercoaster. They go through phases which range from feelings of shame and helplessness to anger and an overwhelming desire for vengeance/justice. Even some of the most docile targets fantasise about doing hurtful things to the bullies because they want the bullies to hurt, just the way they (the targets) are hurting. Thankfully, very few targets actually go on to cause their bullies any physical harm.
Yes. We have developed but not yet posted at the WBI site the predictable stages of targethood. Anger comes much later. I’m saying that if anger were the spontaneous reaction to mistreatment, it’s probably not a matter of the person being a target. We deplore how many targets engage in self-blame and beat themselves up. Suicide is equally likely as violence directed toward others. Thanks for your keen observation.
I disagree that there are weak connections to workplace bullying with the Omar Thorton incident. Targets are keen in identifying other targets of bullying. It seems Omar was mobbed. Rage takes time to build. Who knows how long Omar was bullied. Your site has also noted that one in five cases involves discrimination. Also, most targets (or the only targets who express this phenomenon) seem to be women who don’t have access to weapons. I too was accused of stealing, harrassment, drug seeking, blah, blah, blah, and I was the manager. I was not escorted out of the establishment but told to leave and turn over my keys to (guess who) the bully. She complained to my superior that she was afraid that my husband would come to the store and shoot her. This is after I confronted her and asked her what she was up too. She went on an emotional rampage and claimed I harrassed her. I know my bully but the real phenomenon is how hard working, desent co-workers join in the mobbing, set up scenarios to produce evidence of guilt and don’t feel any shame or remorse for destroying a person’s well-being. Do I feel rage? You bet. Will I go on a shooting rampage. Probably not. I don’t own a weapon; I know it’s against the law to shoot people; and I also know that there is a phenomenon called workplace bullying and that you can survive, pick up the pieces and continue with your life. It’s a too bad we couldn’t reach Omar and tell him about bullying and that there are other options and about people like yourself who work tirelessly to stop it. By the way, I worked retail and when an employee is caught stealing they are usually embarrased and admit to the stealing. I’ve never seen an employee go into a killing rampage.
There does always seem to be a “story behind the story.”
Some people only see the surface of a situation. Some people lack deeper insight. Some people refuse to see deeper, even if they are able, and even if the writing is all over the wall. The present day workplace, no matter where or what it is, is designed to operate like a Hollywood movie set. The only things you actually see are exactly what you’re expected to see. Anything out of those margins is hidden right out in the open. The bullying and all the misconduct is there plain as day, but only if you have the ability and the desire to see it. And it is protected fiercely from those that even try. Most workers who are struggling financially, will see ignoring the conflict as simply another means of “protecting their bread”. This is the recipe that helps to isolate a targeted employee at work. In todays world “work is work” and it is not so much a common practice to bring work problems home to the dinner table. However, once isolated at work, the target will seek support at home. Loved ones at home can be very attentive, and supportive and sympathetic… but minus extenuating circumstances they can not be in that workplace when the bullying is actually occurring. Lots of people can see the movie on the screen the way it was intended to be seen, but they can’t see the multitude of perspectives behind the scenes where emotional trauma is actually happening. When this malalignment at home percolates for a awhile… it then turns into a situation of its own, causing more grief and less support for the target. All of these things happen behind the scenes while the target continues to turn inward. A target turning inward causes bullies to press harder. When pain exceeds pain-coping resources, suicidal feelings are the result. These feelings are caused by an imbalance of pain versus coping resources.
In order to survive suicidal feelings a target must do either of two things: (1) find a way to reduce the pain, or (2) find a way to increase coping resources and support system. When a target is unable to balance this equation, they descend quickly toward their breaking point. After the breaking point, the folks behind the scenes say, “I saw this coming” and the folks watching the screen say “OH MY! THAT person must have been CRAZY!” The differences in these two types of people alone are enough to auto-ignite the rumor mill. The next thing you know the truth becomes extremely difficult to decipher.
It is very sad that a human being can reach a point in their life where they would carry out such an act of desperation. It is even more sad that statistics show this type of thing happening more often. The workplace will continue to be an unstable battle ground until bullying is officially acknowledged as a problem, and a plan for prevention / treatment is developed. Considering the current state of our nation… I would not expect this to happen anytime soon. The best you can hope for, is to contact your HR department and ask them very nicely if it would somehow be possible to work “bullet proof vest” into the dress code.
Hi Gary, I’m glad to see that you read and respond to each of the comments here. Like Celia, I was very confused by many of your points (and I mean I was literally confused, as opposed this being a euphemism for disagreement). There were a few times when I when I went back to see if I had read correctly. For example, you wrote: “it is dangerous to speculate that bullying of Omar Thornton at Harford Distributors was the cause,” which sounds like a diplomatic way of saying “If you think workplace bullying had anything to do with these murders, you’re wrong.” So I was very surprised to read such a statement on your blog. Only on re-reading can I guess that you might intend the operative phrase to be “dangerous to speculate” meaning something like “we should be cautious when we examine” the causes of the rampage.
At times, it seemed you were arguing both sides. For example, you wrote: “bullied targets are gentle souls, too ‘nice’ for their own good, non-confrontive,” and argue (I think)that targets don’t generally own guns: “Targets are victims of the abuse of power, rarely its practitioners.” But then you immediately wrote “maybe targets love guns for their power because they are powerless at work,” which seems to indicate that targets are indeed capable of taking a strong (and eventually confrontative) stance…(?). Confusing.
Another example where you seemed to contradict yourself was when you wrote: “the causal link between a toxic work environment and massacre as solution is an indirect connection at best.” However, you later point us to the movie “Murder by Proxy”(sadly not yet available through Netflix), which (according to their website) seems to make exactly the point that there is a causal link between a toxic workplace and “going postal.” As I re-read your post, I am guessing that you intend to point out that analysis needs to the reflect the individual and complex factors that lead to these massacres, that sometimes the shooter has some other kind of personality or other psychiatric disorder, and that we must guard against jumping to conclusions i.e. “Kneejerk post hoc analysis,” as you phrased it.
One sentence that I don’t understand at all is: “Thornton’s anger could have been a simple frustration-aggression response with little to no emotional component. Bullying involves emotional injury.” Could you explain what a “frustration-aggression response” is?
Please understand that my comments here are not intended to criticize your writing competence but rather to explain that there were, in fact, many areas of your post that were confusing. I think this may be what Claudia was trying to address…?
May I also say that Claudia, you have obviously been through hell, and you have my complete sympathy. I hope you are getting the help you need (which has been a traumatizing experience all on its own, it sounds like). I have been through similar situations but thankfully not all at once: My first experience, I was ostracized/scapegoated from my social community due to what I thought was a misunderstanding and a couple people spreading misinformation about me. It was devastating and heartbreaking that I could not convince my “friends” that it was all a “misunderstanding”…, utterly heartbreaking. But then moved to a new place and found a nice community, new job… but was then bullied at work. I lost that job, moved again into an apartment-share situation and had a virtual repeat of the first situation. By then I had learned to read the signs and get out quickly. Also unlike your situation, my situations never reached the extreme of yours, where it sounds like you were charged with a crime! And you were living in an isolated village where you could be attacked not only by members of your community, but also by bears!?! Clearly an environment where people need to be able to trust and rely on their neighbors, making the bullying you endured all the more damaging to your sense of well-being. My heart goes out to you…
Helium, Keen and accurate observations all. I am trying to express both sides. I can clearly connect the dots, regardless of the number of levels of removal of frustration source to planned outcome (shooting), but don’t want to do that since I was not there. I’m part of Murder by Proxy and am ambivalent about it being misunderstood, though proud of my contributions to it.
One thing I can express unequivocally is the disgust I feel when we (thru the media, I suppose) blame victims without bothering to discover the frustrations they have endured. Thanks for the clarifications. I want this site to engage in this kind of dialogue. If I keep writing sloppily and quickly (though unintentionally), it will spark thoughtful reflections like yours.
HR WONT ADMIT TO RACISM TO AVOID LAWSUITS SHAME ON THEM THEY KEEP CALLING THIER EMPLOYEES FAMILY IF THATS TRUE ONE OF THIER FAMILY (OMAR) WAS BEING HARASSED AND THEY JUST SWEPT IT UNDER THE RUG FOR PROFIT HOW CAN ANYONE EXPECT CHANGE WITHOUT FINDING THE ROOT OF THE PROBLEM OMAR DIDNT END HIS LIFE JUST OVER GETTING FIRED AS HR WOULD LIKE EVERYONE TO BELIEVE H.R. SHARES IN THE CAUSE OF THIS TRAGEDY
Note to the moderator regarding my previous post:
Thank you for changing my mistake (i.e. when I referred to “Claudia” instead of the correct name “Celia.”
I wonder if you could go back and change the “Claudia” to “Celia” in the two other instances where it appears…? One “Claudia” is at the beginning of the last paragraph, and the other “Claudia is just a few lines before that.
I hope you wouldn’t mind, since all my sympathy and commiseration may be dismissed in disgust due to using the wrong name (some people take their names *very* seriously…).
Thank you!
The Teamsters is a racist, corrupt orgainization with a lengthy, well-documented history of both.
Teamsters Local 337 is currently running the Omar game on an African-American member who objected to the union’s collusion with an employer.
The game includes a false allegation of theft, as well as the false assertion that video evidence of theft that never happened exists.
They lie.
You do not know that Omar stole anything.
You do not know that video evidence of Omar stealing exists or ever did.
All any of us know for sure is that after the massacre, the union and employer said so.
We know the police arrested two of Omar’s associates said to be featured on the video.
We also know that the family who owns Hartford Distributors is politically connected.
They could all be lying to protect each other from the fallout of their wrongdoing.
Let’s see the video.
Let’s see the contents of Omar’s cell phone.
Let’s hear from the other African-Americans who have been employed there.
What’s the delay?
Nineteen days have passed, and the liars remain mum.
One more thing:
Why did Teamsters Local 1035′s representative, Chris Roos, find it necessary to pound Omar Thornton’s mother in the media for having her say?
I agree with Gary’s assessment, I have 1st hand knowledge of how Management can if it wishes after the fact clean a personnel file removing incriminating evidence of wrong doing or to manufacture documents including scanning signatures onto documents to justify their actions.
I do believe some employers do stage things to appear differently than they really are. Do I think that is what happened to Omar, I can not say it did, I was not there to see what happened.
I do know Omar Thornton was in a the darkest and deepest depth one could go, a place I believe that rivals hell, my heart goes out to his family and the all the families of the victims that died that day.
I can not say he was bullied nor can I say he was not, but what I can say is that bullying destroys livies, it robs millions of the American Dream and we can save livies and futures of millions by supporting legislation that could make a world of difference.
I do wonder how many we could save today, I do know that the Healthy Workplace Bill has the potential of saving livies, perhaps the life of someone you know.