Is Workplace Violence on Rise? : Killings: Shootings of two executives at a San Diego electronics firm has experts pondering causes of such outbursts.

SAN DIEGO —  Before he was laid off from his job at a Miramar electronics firm last March, Larry Hansel reportedly talked to his fellow employees about a 1989 incident in Escondido in which a disgruntled postal employee walked into the Orange Glen post office and opened fire on his colleagues, killing two people and wounding a third.

Now Hansel is in police custody, and witnesses are telling how he returned to the company Tuesday and shot and killed two Elgar Corp. executives while terrified workers fled.

The two deadly incidents share an eerie similarity to a 1986 massacre in Oklahoma. In that case, a part-time postal employee entered the post office and killed 14 of his co-workers before killing himself.

Such cases raise chilling questions:

* Are we entering an era when employees are being pushed to such psychological extremes that settling disputes with gunfire is becoming common?

* What is it about the modern workplace that causes individuals to snap in such violent fashion?

“I think throughout the country the idea of a disgruntled employee taking out his rage on his former employer is on the increase,” said Michael Mantell, a specialist on police psychology who has often worked with the San Diego Police Department. Mantell worked on a psychological profile of the killer in the Oklahoma massacre, among other cases.

“There is no one reason for it,” Mantell said. “In some instances the person simply has a psychological break from reality and goes off the deep end.”

Experts say it is possible that these killings breed more violence, planting disturbing ideas in already disturbed individuals.

“People start fantasizing that, ‘this is what I am going to do to my boss.’ That’s where the copy cat syndrome can come into it,” Mantell said. “It fuels the fantasies of many disgruntled employees.”

Dr. Melvin G. Goldzband, a psychiatrist who is director of forensic psychiatric training at the UC San Diego Medical School, has another view. “I don’t think there will be an epidemic because (most people have) at least a modicum of control,” he said.

“But we are seeing more and more (of these incidents), and we will continue to see more as the amount of disturbances grows. There is a lot of hostility out there.”

Mental health experts agree that the problems of the individuals must be addressed in order to prevent these kinds of blow ups, that they shouldn’t slip through the mental health system.

“The moral of this is to make sure that people who broadcast these types of bizarre ideas get help before this happens,” Goldzband said.

The end results of these slayings in the workplace may be similar, but the causes of the episodes, the trigger that sends someone into a murderous rage can vary greatly, psychologists say. Such cases are invariably the result of negative factors that are increasing throughout society, experts say, problems such as increased divorce, child abuse, drugs and growing stress.

“There is definitely an imitative process that goes on,” said Richard Sobel, a San Diego psychologist who often works on stress-related illnesses. “People see it as a model to venting extreme rage. But I really think the biggest driving force is these people who go unnoticed and untreated.”

Disturbed people learn about incidents of strange violence through extensive media coverage, raising the issue of the extent that might plant suggestions in the minds of a disturbed individual.

“There is no question that, if people . . . read about violence, and they are prone to violence, they may take up those suggestions,” Goldzband said.

Media coverage can “reinforce and sensationalize one of the fundamental needs that goes on in these type of people--the need for recognition,” Sobel said. On the other hand, Sobel said, media coverage can serve a positive purpose, accenting the “horrible experiences” that create these types of disturbed individuals, and it may help the public spot potential trouble.

Experts agree that such incidents are news, and they deserve full coverage. But in addition to intensive coverage by the daily print, radio and television media, tragedies of this kind are often covered by the tabloid media, including television shows like “Hard Copy” and “A Current Affair,” programs that specialize in putting an extra dramatic touch into the story.

Sensationalized news accounts can help prompt a distraught person to snap, Mantell said. “But, on the other hand, if they didn’t have that, they could go to a Rambo movie and be set off,” he said.

If someone is upset enough, anything can trigger an episode. “It could be a song or their own internal delusions,” said Mantell, who believes the biggest reason for the increase in these episodes is the ready availability of guns.

Many theories have been developed about what causes someone to commit murder in the workplace as a means of venting rage. And, experts agree, it goes far beyond the idea of a “copy cat syndrome.”

“We’re dealing with two factors,” Goldzband said. “We’re dealing with a situation that could be copied. And, more importantly, we’re dealing with individuals whose control may be shot.”

In many cases, the individual may be suffering from a form of a post-traumatic stress disorder, reacting to abuses earlier in life, experts say. They also say that it is often difficult for people to find help.

“The work site is a perfect metaphor for what is happening in society,” Sobel said. The workplace “exasperates the already festering wounds because there is so much of the individual lost in the organizational setting,” Sobel added.

Harsh economic times help breed such extreme reactions. The trauma of losing a job during a time when jobs are hard to find can be a crushing blow to some people.

“A lot of people later in life find themselves panicking,” said Goldzband.

That Hansel reportedly spoke to neighbors and co-workers about extreme religious beliefs, as well as discussing the Escondido incident, is not unusual, experts say.

“These people are sending up red flags,” Goldzband said.