thanks middlesex district attorney mary and i and they get you for tuning into middlesex update today is that the so it is going to look at safety in the workplace and talk about some of the issues of how we preserve that safety through preparedness and and prevention and you know the reality is that all of us spend a lot more time at work these days for most of us it's become a second home a place where we should be able to feel very safe and comfortable and yet we repeatedly see incidents tragically most not in most recently in paris and in san bernadino where people in their workplace are struck down in violence and those incidents attract our attention because of the number of people and the loss of life the reality is that workplace violence occurs every day in many different kinds of situations and we know there are really four kinds of incidents where that happen happens the first is what we probably most traditionally think about where someone comes into our workplace with bad intent intending to do harm to hurt people perhaps to steal things that traditional we see somebody go into a convenience store and rob the store we also see incidents that occur between coworkers  you know there may be disputes over over time or divisions of responsibility and those lead to violence there are also those folks who come into establishment with a with a proper purpose a customer a patient and something goes awry while they're in there in the incident encounter turns violent and finally in increasingly what we see as employees who come to work and have some kind of situation in their personal life that has turned violence and that situation follows them to work and they and perhaps other people at the workplace maybe someone who's helping them with that situation become violent and often those kind of incidents especially the ones that attract our media attention what prompted employers to think about we need to do something how should we address that but what we know is that very often the incidents that erupt have been brewing for a long period of time there may have been signs that in hindsight we realize they were things that should have been addressed and in middlesex county we've developed a program to really address that before and employers looking at those issues asked us to come in to help them think about how could they better train themselves better trained their staff to recognize these things so we  middlesex county have already presented over twenty five workplace safety conferences educating well over two thousand people from a variety of businesses and types of workplace settings across the county and what they can be doing better name kloden a few things very basic things the first is having that kind of training having very clear codes of conduct in the workplace and really really no tolerance policies for behavior that is outside of that having staff that are well trained and know what to do in a situation where there's a problem it's really a noticing small things things that by themselves may not seem to be terribly important but when seen as part of a constellation give you an idea that something is going wrong here and probably most importantly what we have learned is that you have to have a system internally and externally for sharing information it doesn't help in a workplace if everybody has a little bit of information but they're not putting it together and similarly it doesn't help if folks in the workplace are worried about something or concern that something is going to erupt and they don't know where to go outside for help and in that partnership we have brought together as we've done these trainings many members of law enforcement in private business to help us talk about those issues come up with best practices and spread that information so i'm very honored today to have joining me two of the folks who've been very instrumental in doing that with us to my left heath jones the director of corporate server security at the child star draper laboratory in cambridge and to his left left cheap richard smith the chief of the wagtail police department so thank you both for being here today you've been good friends and good partners to us in this work and i think before we start talking about some of these issues perhaps if we start with you keith just tell our audience a little bit about your professional background and your experience in this area ok so for twenty five years or so i've been working with  with the district attorney's office marion and many police departments regarding workplace safety from incidents that happened which were tragic we had some suicides at the workplace we had some homicides at the workplace and that's how i personally got involved to try to help minimize and to the extent practical prevent those things from happening in the workplace in the first place over the twenty five years and work with your office marion we have come up with training programs and designed threat management teams where we are prepared in case something comes to the workplace to handle it properly and what i'm proud to say is now is that through the help of law enforcement in your office we are managing a little things now instead of big things all my career first started they were big things that i was getting good at managing out so intervention and prevention is certainly the background that i have in this a background that has taken me to a successful stage when my career where we're managing little things you mention is we're talking a little bit earlier we hosted a workplace safety seminar a few weeks ago i had about three hundred fifty people there and it was amazing to see the sophistication that people have come to in these issues over the last few years absolutely i think the education that's out there through your office but generally t awareness of the the shootings that you talked about people are much more aware people are much more willing to learn and what i really appreciate about that's another you're talking about is people who are much more aware and willing to share their experiences in an open my my my career is very broad and very vast and over those years i've had the great opportunity to work with not only your office as well as the private side o people like keith getting into the corporate side getting into the educational component building partnerships with contractors and our businesses within our communities policing is eighty percent community relations even more so now and since  of columbine policing has changed and wakefield i'm sure will be talking about it in the future is one of the communities that had the experience the unfortunate experience of a major workplace violence event but that doesn't mean you brought employees and how do we manage that and how do we keep it from becoming larger and becoming a national event which can be so you know over the career over the forty one years i've had that opportunity to see this change see our response change as a police department and see how we manage it going forward when we get a complaint when we get private sector partners come to us and say what do we do how do we dismiss a simple how do we do it safely and how do we make sure that people come to work every day and that includes people don't think of workplaces as schools as workplaces but schools workplaces and many of our communities especially in a way one with a community is a little bit smaller they are the largest employer in the community and every city or town has a school system so every city in town has a major employer well you bring up a great point chief and that is you know in middlesex county we not only have fifty four cities and towns running their own schools we've got the vocational kinds of schools the bigger regional schools we also have over to the two thousand colleges and universities that bring as you said large numbers of people every single day that's their workplace and what is challenging about that as well is that while they may have the population of a small town on campus or in their school that it's a constantly changing population i mean if you look at a college every year twenty five percent of the population moves on and that training needs to really be constant to keep people up to date now kids you mentioned that thirty years you spent thirty plus years doing this the definition of workplace violence as i mentioned is really very broad can you talk to us a little bit more in detail about some of the kinds of situations you've seen and did so i think traditionally people think workplace violence is when a shooting takes place or when there's an incident where someone is seriously hurt but i think it's more of a broad range of questionable behavior that the chief talked about it's the it's the tete a tetes that develop between employees it's the pushing or shoving the what turns out to be incidental but it grows and it gravitates and it escalates and gets worse and and worse and you've said many times marion whenever there's a very tragic incident you can always reverse engineer what happened and find out that you know what that was like that was likely preventable or predictable that if it was left on addressed it was going to escalate and get worse so what i've been focusing on and i think you know with with law enforcement  your office is getting things when they're very very little it could be the shoving it could be the the belligerent it could be someone refusing to accept performance problems that they may have it could be financial problems it's all those saber rattling things that happen that we make very very relevant now in volved law enforcement so getting it when it's little before it matures is really the range of workplace violence that people need to get good at and as i said if we're managing little things so they are less it means we're doing the big and important things up front to prevent those things from happening thank you now if you mentioned that just this past december a month or so ago the day after christmas was the fifteenth  technologies a large workplace in wakefield where an employee there came into work with in a cave forty seven a twelve gauge shotgun and a pistol and executed seven of his coworkers wounded many others and that has clearly had a very lasting impact on your department on the town can you talk a little bit about what's the police response in that kind of situation which the police department really led a lot of that response and how you prepare for those sorts of things and also what as defined in the time prior to that it had been columbine and people looked at schools and places of business as different environments back then you responded it was all hands from that we have learned and we as law enforcement have learned we as a community have learned how to handle this technique from the tactical side would change our tactics to the benefit of it was always a benefit of keeping the police safe so that we can do our job but now at this point the sense the world has changed so drastically mission is to get into that building and stop it as soon as we can at great expense unfortunately sometimes but what we've also learned is we have to engage the community it key talked about it the educational component the bringing the community together with it now what we've done with edgewater is we have done some this but there were signs and there were signs of people saw and there were signs that people probably dismiss a great loss now we talk about those signs and now we talk to the c e o we talk to the employees we talk to the  r professionals on how to look for this stuff and how to let us know early on and i think we've done a pretty good job it's always going to happen some of these crimes and not preventable but if they predictable they are preventable and our goal as a community as a workplace community and as a law enforcement community is to make them predictable or make them as predictable as we can so that we hopefully can prevent them so you talk to a little bit about how law enforcement has changed what kind of steps can folks who have a private business or government agencies or sort of the consumer piece the community piece what kind of steps can they take to build good and better relationships with law enforcement and sharing information we have to meet we have to we as law enforcement have to go out to our businesses whether it's a small corner shop a global company and we have to get the team in business on good you're in good shape but a lot of business is a focus it's a bottom line and sometimes is collateral damage and we talked about an incident locally before the show where it's business as usual the next day and it's not and it's so you know to get people talking and get to that level the c e o level you know in police department everybody wants to talk to the chief in a business nobody wants to talk or can get to the c e o well it has to be the same practice and once they buy in it trickles down downstream and hopefully that becomes the win for us and keep you say a lot of times you know if you don't have the c e o s that is now it's a no go and that's really what the chief is talking about and what kid if you could talk to us a little bit about we talked a lot about the prevention education but what are some of the kinds of behaviors that people should be focusing on his warnings so you know the early i call me early warning indicators i like to use the example of sort of a smoke detector right when you when there's smoke if you don't intervene there's likely going to be fire it's the or it's the check engine light right so so i think some of the early behaviors that corporate america in my view is getting better at is to try to detect anomalous behavior of employees in very easy for employers to do that because they have a baseline of that employee some you know michael worked there for many years right there's a baseline and then there's a change to the baseline and that's where corporate america has an advantage where they can detect anomalous behaviors that are happening throughout and make those relevant so you know those early indicators that happen if they could intervene and when it's a little g employee assistance put somebody you know on a pip you know those are the times when you want to intervene and help that employee get back on track and get better the barriers you see is that employers sometimes your employees are afraid to report their coworker or their friend and so it goes on a little longer in a little longer than it should so i think if i the culture i think is changing in the training sessions that i've been at with you marion and you know i think if people can get things when they early instead of late then we're going to have a better chance to prevent intervene intervene and keep things from happening that we don't want to have happen what kind of barriers exist in a workplace to somebody making that report well involved so breaking down the barriers within the company is a security person's job and i think of them nice job trooper with that but then break in the barrier breaking down the barriers in the community to reach out to the police departments to know that the district attorney's office resources that we can't possibly have and of course the other barrier is people who are afraid to say something about a coworker because they don't want to get them in trouble but i can tell you through the early intervention and prevention that you train we are able to cultivate an environment where people will say go see keith he can help you that's like being called to the principal's office or the chief's office so it's a nice thing when people come to me with problems about someone and we're able to intervene in help them get better and quite frankly get them back on the track and make them productive employees and chief similarly you've talked a lot about wanting to get involved early i make those connections with the business you know very often the things that are happening in the workplace may turn criminal and people are reluctant to call the police department i want to bother them or it's not bad enough to call that can you talk just a little bit about how really you'd prefer to have people coming in before we get to the point where you're responding in an emergency situation well after i have to use keys analogy with the smoke detector we want to know we we constantly go out to the community and a lot of times we call we were in the schools we want to know what's going on we have police officers assigned to our schools and they're there that first level the other people that we want stuff reported to and report up the only way to do that is through communication and you know your patrols have to stop by and the days of seeing a police vehicle in front of a business or a school doesn't mean somebody is in trouble it means that we need your buy in and without the like he says without a very small piece we can't do our job the biggest problem today in america as i see it is exactly what we're talking about people are afraid to report their friend and as a we fail to report their friend of their colleague that empowers the colleague and every day that it goes on the thing gets a little  and they get a little braver and then it eventually at the end of the day it blows up it catches fire we have to get beyond that san bernadino was a perfect example of that there were people that had an idea that things were missed in the neighborhood but they were afraid  to report they could have called the local police department so we encourage wakefield and many of the chiefs in middlesex county really get out there whether it's through social media or in a personal visit we go out and we ask people to come nothing is more important everybody has to understand that whatever's going through somebody's mind at that point time is the biggest event in their life it may seem in consequential to us but it's the biggest event in their life and we want them to come forward now we respond to a lot of business places during the course of our day that's a perfect opportunity for the agency to reiterate whether it's a coffee shop or get a global company you need us call us we'll figure out whether what it is and what it's worth  and let that become the mantra within that company whether again like it's a it's a mom and pop store or it's a multinational company and again i can't reiterate enough that we really need the buy in of not only middle management but we need senior management as they would want from us and you know one of the unique aspects of the program we've developed in middlesex county has really been this public private partnership that's really enrich the work we do because it's brought in so many different perspectives and keith you know you've been a good friend to us in bringing that private piece he talked to us a little bit about some of the best practices we've seen develop and then what are some of the things that people can think about in terms of strategy planning for their own establishment whether it is the chief says the coffee shop or the global company right so certainly policies procedures and we talk about this a lot where there are active policies and procedures there's ownership or policies and procedures they are reviewed after an incident to make sure that there  sufficient reach out in c e o s allowing companies to reach out to law enforcement one of the other barriers i didn't mention earlier is a lot of times workplace violence will come to your workplace to someone who doesn't work there  and you don't even know who this individual is and so there is a barrier out there where employees do not want to share with the company they're there exterior relationships that can kick in they can be very favorabl into the workplace and that's another barrier so the policies should require employees to report any information that they have that might suggest the workplace may be in some danger so if you have a restraining order you would have to turn that restraining order over the company you know things like that very very important but it's the culture that needs to know that we can help you if you report to us anything they it's a concern to you and it's the management management that gets these reports that hears these reports that reports from to the right people in takes action to look into informally mitigate or put in plans to make sure that bad things don't come to the to the company so it's really the the culture has to change from the top down in order for companies to be successful with the policies and procedures in the threat management team that is designed to take seriously very quickly and make relevant behavior and try to make that behavior as little as possible and part of the outreach with the law enforcement folks i would add that in my career some of the most dangerous situations that we have involved people that don't work for us it's people that know people who work for us and i would say to you know the employers out there you need to have the relationships with your office marion with you you have to have those relationships because you know more about these people than we ever will in fact we know nothing about these people other than the fact that they're on happy with one of our employees for whatever reason may be so the some of the most on a vengeful resolves were some of the most serious situations i've ever personally dealt with and it could not have been successfully resolved without the partnership of your office in the police department wrote middlesex county for sure and keep you know keep talked a little bit about how you may be and you mentioned as well that you know you may have a business where they are concerned about their public image it publicly getting out there but i think one of the things you and i have talked about is you know the ability to interact with law enforcement or with the district attorney's office in a way that resolves as keith said the situation way before having to do that sort of thing and is that certainly something that police departments open to people coming in and you know ahead of sort of ahead of time ahead of a problem and working that through in a way that resolves it pretty easily and without a terrible negative impact exactly right solvers and you know i i'm proud to say that we do that very well and i can't say enough and we always say it in our local media and our local social media that come to us talk to us we can't help you if we can't help you we will find the people that can help you i just want to go back to one thing that keith said a moment ago i think is very important it's the external injection of of trouble one of them being the restraining order the message that happens at home we have that it in our educational facilities so we have that in high schools with students who have restraining orders so you never know what's coming down the road what's coming from the external but working with the internal side is is huge like he says we can always look a little deeper we can communicate some or offices that are in the field or on the street know the players and they can notice a difference they can build a relationship come from making them comfortable coming to us because a lot of people are afraid the name is going to be in the paper or the name is going to be in the police log or what not we're not about that the old days are gone the focus today is to solve problems quickly and then move on to the next problem and we can do that and we can also do that by going external and offering services that can help that employee outside of the workplace in an office and one of the things that law enforcement can always bring to this i think is in the ability to have knowledge of other incidents and things that are flags for instance you know we've talked in middlesex county about a number of the incidents that have taken place the edgewater situation day after christmas the incident at kohls in movement where a police officer was killed day after christmas another incident a robbery of a jewelry store when an officer was shot and seriously injured day after labor day you know there's a pattern there of things situations where people take advantage of days when security might be a little bit less when people might be absent and that's sort of a broad range that lauren foresman brings to that that i as the business owner am not thinking about you know about these other things you know the kinds of things we're looking at and i think that speaks to the piece that you were mentioning of how there's the problem solver you can bring in that extra piece right and sometimes into you have to have a tough conversation and you bring that information forward and you lay it on the table as long as you're brutally honest with people and don't try to sugarcoat it and let them know that yes or is a poor mother could be a problem it's very important people understand that  and but we professionally today can do it in a way that it's not offensive but people have to understand that there are patterns there are things that we look at their criminal histories in the background and we will do that will provide that service and it's all in confidence because again people are afraid of the name being in the paper being a police law that people talking in those days are gone our goal is to solve the problem that's in front of us and do what the best way we can and we partner with you we  with you know the private side the private sector like keith has talked about and that's the best way to expedient way to get it done and katie have talked often about the fact that you know very often in that same day employer might think i'm just going to fire the person who just got to get them off my property and they're very often that certainly doesn't make the situation better and often backfires yes yes so certainly if you don't do it right right e a p is a big component and i think a lot of times when employees are very troubled sometimes companies think just fire this individual and will be rid of the problem but i would suggest to them that if they do that the question isn't will the person come back the question is when will that person come back so reaching out to law enforcement sharing with them information that they need to have to keep the facility safe offering employee assistance to employees even if they're terminated continuing their benefits certainly you do not get rid of the problem by removing it in a lot of the people that deserve to be terminated are the ones that you ought to will actually extend benefits to for extended period of time because they're the ones that are likely going to cause harm to your facilities so extending those that people traditionally would say why would we want to continue salary continuance or extend them benefits when they are in such a questionable way we just want to get rid of them that can make things worse for sure unfortunately we're at a time and i've been honored to have my guests join me this morning wakefield police chief richard smith and keith jones from draper laboratory i thank them i've enjoyed this conversation i hope that you the viewers have found this information helpful and that hearing about these issues causes you to think about your own workplace what are the things that you could be looking at identifying risk factors and what kind of prevention and education can you bring the air so that we do all go to work and return home safely every day thank