Putting safety first

NEMLEC summit features DA Ryan

Rich Tenorio rtenorio@wickedlocal.com
Shirley Singleton (left), CEO of Edgewater Technology, speaks at the NEMLEC Business Safety Summit at Montvale Plaza last Thursday. Edgewater was the site of the Dec. 26, 2000 mass shooting by an employee that left seven coworkers dead. Courtesy photo

Fifteen years later, the murder of seven workers at a company in Wakefield still loomed large as law enforcement officials and business professionals came together for a day of presentations on safety in the workplace.

The Northeastern Massachusetts Law Enforcement Council (NEMLEC) — which includes several communities including Melrose — held a Business Safety Summit at Montvale Plaza last Thursday, featuring addresses from Middlesex County District Attorney Marian Ryan and from Shirley Singleton, CEO of Edgewater Technology, where seven employees were fatally shot by a co-worker, Michael McDermott, on Dec. 26, 2000. McDermott is now serving seven life sentences.

The event on Thursday took place less than 24 hours after another tragedy: nine people were killed at a historic African-American church, the Emanuel AME Church, in Charleston, S.C. One of the dead was the Rev. Clementa Pinckney, who was the church pastor and a state senator.

The accused shooter, 21-year-old Dylann Roof, who is white and allegedly wrote white supremacist statements online, is in police custody.

“I think (what happened in South Carolina) reinforces what we’re talking about today,” Ryan said in an interview.

In her address to the audience, she said, “There are unconventional workplaces like a church or, in Middlesex County, schools, great institutes of higher learning, that hundreds of people go to in a week.”

She also discussed the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing tragedy, in which three people were killed and over 260 were injured, as an example of workplace violence.

“I was downtown that day,” she told the Stoneham Sun, a sister paper of the Free Press. “Training is like muscle memory. FEMA and medical professionals drill and train. Not one person who made it to the hospital did not survive. Lots of people were at their workplace, certainly. It was an extraordinary (situation) that one hopes we will never see again.”

Ryan, who was appointed Middlesex DA two years ago, has addressed the issue of workplace violence in the past. In 2012, she put together a training program on workplace violence.

Horror in Wakefield

The issue was discussed in detail on Thursday, including a presentation from Shirley Singleton and partner David Clancey, who co-founded Edgewater Technology, where the issue of workplace violence erupted onto the local scene 15 years ago.

As a photo of the bulky, bearded McDermott was shown on the screen, Singleton said of her former co-worker, “This is a picture of someone who ended up murdering seven people. He’s a big man, 6-5. I’m 5-3.” However, she added, “He was pleasant. He would reach for a coffee cup (for me).”

Singleton even described him putting together a program for a Boston Harbor cruise, joking and sharing cigars with a colleague he eventually killed.

“It’s not always black and white,” she said. “We only saw one incident.”

She said that the company HR administrator, who was one of the seven killed in the shooting, reported that McDermott cracked a dirty joke during a meeting.

In October 2000, the IRS notified Edgewater that he owed $500,000.

Singleton said that while the company offered to work with McDermott and the IRS to find a solution, McDermott turned them down.

The IRS had told McDermott that if the tax issue went unresolved, it would begin garnishing his wages in January under a worst-case scenario.

“He made a list of everybody he was going to kill, Dave and I, everybody that wanted to help (him),” Singleton said. “He came in, he had a 24-hour pass, the night before, he stored guns, liquor and pills in his locker. The next day, I was on duty, greeting everybody. I left at 10:45. He started shooting at 11:05.”

Singleton said she missed it by 15 minutes.

“He had a duffel bag, went into the lobby, took out an AK-47, a .32 pistol and a shotgun,” she said. “He was working his list, execution-style. He hit people in the leg so they couldn’t run and (followed with) shots to the head and back.”

Workplace risk factors

Other speakers addressed how to address future threats to workplaces, from psychological and technological standpoints.

David Selden of Lahey Health Behavioral Services cited risk factors to watch for, including a history of violence and domestic situations, as well as an increasing fascination with weapons, a fascination with a co-worker, a preoccupation with violent themes, an interest in recently publicized violent events such as the church shooting in South Carolina, and outbursts of anger.

He also cited workplace risk factors, including understaffing, job overload and compulsory overtime, as well as downsizing and reorganization, labor disputes, poor labor-management relations, a high injury rate or frequent grievances, poor management styles, adequacy of security and a lack of employee counseling.

“Shirley (Singleton) said it’s a family,” Selden said. “You can’t have an us-versus-them (mentality).”

Christian Connors, CEO of Shooter Detection Systems, showed the audience a video clip of how his detection device, which uses sensors and microphones, can identify a gunshot fired inside a building.

He also gave the audience instances of how crucial information can be delayed in informing the police of a shooting.