Skip to content
Menu
menu

Illustration by Security Management

Where Does Ideological Violence Fit into OSHA’s Violence Typology?

The Manhattan district attorney charged the suspect in the targeted attack on UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson with killing as an act of terrorism.

“This was a frightening, well-planned, targeted murder that was intended to cause shock and attention and intimidation,” said Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg in his announcement of the charges. “It occurred in one of the most bustling parts of our city, threatening the safety of local residents and tourists alike, commuters and businesspeople just starting out their day.”

Some of the suspect’s writings, which were made public, seem to suggest that he targeted Thompson because of the symbolism of the attack.

While there may be different perspectives on whether this murder was terrorism, it was clearly an act of workplace violence.

The U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) defines workplace violence as any act or threat of violence against workers while they are at a worksite or on duty. Workplace violence can occur at any location where work-related functions are conducted, including the physical workplace, off-site meetings, company vehicles, or even the employee’s home if work-related activities are being performed there.

Thompson was on duty, walking to an investor conference to represent his employer. He did not have another reason for being outside the Hilton Midtown shortly before 7:00 a.m. He was working when he was attacked.

Security practitioners will be intimately familiar with OSHA’s decades-old typology describing workplace violence:

  • Type I workplace violence is usually incidental to another crime, such as robbery, shoplifting, or trespassing.

  • Type II violence occurs in the context of a legitimate business relationship with the business, often during the delivery of routine services.  

  • Type III workplace violence involves current and former coworkers, supervisors, managers, or other employees.

  • Type IV workplace violence is intimate partner or domestic violence that follows someone from their personal life to their work life.

Thompson was allegedly chosen as a target because of who he was and what his company represents. While OSHA has historically considered violence related to terrorism or extremism Type I workplace violence—secondary to another crime, such as someone hurt or killed in a robbery—that is not the case in acts of targeted violence.

In the instance of the UnitedHealthcare executive, the attacker’s suspected reason for targeting Thompson was because of who he was and what he represented. Local prosecutors later determined that the act might meet the criteria to be considered terrorism. The suspect has pleaded not guilty to all charges.  

A Fifth Type of Workplace Violence?

In an era marked by increased concerns about violent extremism, and the possibility of extremism infiltrating the workplace, it may be time to revisit OSHA’s four-part typology and consider the addition of a fifth type: ideological violence. This represents the intersection of violent extremism and terrorism with workplace violence. Type V workplace violence can be defined as violence directed at an organization, its people, or its properties for ideological, religious, or political reasons. Target selection is driven by rage against what the targeted organization does or represents. Consider these examples:

  • The Unabomber’s 1994 killing of a senior advertising and PR executive at his home in New Jersey. The executive was targeted because of his firm’s efforts to rehabilitate Exxon’s reputation following the Valdez oil spill.

  • U.S. Army Dr. Nidal Hassan’s 2009 mass shooting at Fort Hood, Texas, motivated by his radical Islamic views about the U.S. military.

  • An anti-abortion extremist’s 2015 attack at the Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado Springs. The attacker said in court that he considered himself a “warrior for the babies.”

  • Two brothers associated with al Qaeda carried out a 2015 massacre at the Paris offices of Charlie Hebdo—retaliation for the satirical magazine’s attacks on political and religious leaders.

  • A violent men’s rights extremist’s 2020 attack on the New Jersey home of U.S. District Judge Esther Salas. The attack killed her son and wounded her husband.

In each of these instances, the targets were hurt or killed because of ideological justifications related to their work. The December 2024 killing of Thompson could be added to this list since it was allegedly carried out by an extremist who is suspected of writing a manifesto that said that “these parasites simply had it coming” and that corporations “…have simply gotten too powerful, and they continue to abuse our country...” 

The Benefits of Expanding the Model

Whether from single-issue violent extremists advancing or defending their views about hot-button issues or terrorists associated with recognized groups, ideological violence has been and remains a risk for organizations, their personnel, and their properties. Businesses were the most common target of terrorist attacks in the United States from 1970 to 2020.

By including ideological violence as a fifth element in OSHA’s typology, organizations may be able to further leverage the workforce for violence prevention. Workplace violence prevention relies heavily on others in contact with a person of concern to recognize and report behaviors and communications indicative of potential movement along the pathway to intended violence. For example, the pre-operational stages of pathway behavior referred to as “probing and breaching” are consistent with warning signs of terrorism such as hostile surveillance, elicitation, tests of security, and attempted intrusion.

Organizations may benefit from a force-multiplier effect if they include the markers of ideological violence along with the behavioral risk indicators associated with other forms of workplace violence. Warning behaviors associated with targeted violence, such as fixation or leakage, may signal extremist activity in a coworker, vendor, or customer. Employees can and should be empowered to recognize behaviors and communications related to any form of violence, including ideological violence.

Keeping ideological violence in a different box creates a false dichotomy and may increase risk if employees think it should be handled differently than other violence concerns. Including ideological violence in the discussion of workplace violence could also foster better internal integration of workplace violence prevention programs with other initiatives like executive protection and travel security.

A gap between awareness of the four established types of workplace violence and ideological violence may create a situation where different teams or departments believe someone else is covering this risk. For example, the workplace violence prevention team may not concern itself with executives or employees who are traveling abroad, and the travel security team might be similarly unaware of concerns the workplace violence team may have about a threat, creating a blind spot.

Using a five-type model, security can bridge these gaps and avoid concerns that could fall between the cracks when different disciplines within security are involved.

Additionally, including ideological violence in the workplace violence mix can promote better interoperability with external partners in the law enforcement and intelligence communities. Behavioral threat assessment and management (BTAM) teams are increasingly common on campuses and in communities. There are many instances in which an individual or group may be on the radar of these teams while simultaneously being monitored as persons of concern by workplace or campus violence prevention teams. Law enforcement and intelligence partners often have more sophisticated open-source intelligence (OSINT) capabilities and greater insights into hostile online communications. The expansion of the existing OSHA framework can be a critical step in closing gaps in prevention and protection.

The targeted violence environment is changing. Extremism in the workplace is becoming mainstream, social and political divisions marked by angry rhetoric are common, and the nature of workplace violence is changing. Thompson’s tragic death may be the catalyst for recalibrating existing models of workplace violence to be more accurately aligned with the evolving threat landscape.

 

Steve Crimando, MA, CTM, is an emergency behavioral health clinician, educator and crisis responder. He is the founder and principal of Behavioral Science Applications LLC, and a member of the steering committees for the ASIS International Extremism and Political Instability Community (EPIC) and the Human Threat Management Community.

Crimando is a Certified Threat Manager (CTM) with the Association of Threat Assessment Professionals (ATAP) and a Certified Master Trainer for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security National Threat Evaluation and Reporting (NTER) program. He was deployed to both the 9/11 and 1993 World Trade Center attacks, the Northeast anthrax screening center, and many other disasters and acts of terrorism. Crimando provides crisis intervention and violence prevention training and support to multinational businesses, law enforcement, intelligence, and military organizations, as well as IGOs and NGOs, worldwide.

 

 

arrow_upward