I’m a few pages behind, but having read some posts from Thursday around the responsibility of the army as VG’s employer to keep her safe, I feel compelled to respond.
I can speak from an employers perspective (I work in Human Resources) and it IS an employers responsibility to protect the health, safety and well-being of all employees while they are at work. This isn’t just a “nice to have”, it’s a law (in the U.K. here certainly).
In the U.K. we have the HASAW (Health and Safety at Work Act) which requires employers to keep employees safe while on their premises and we aren’t just talking physical safety, but mental safety too. We also have the Equality Act which, among other requirements, makes it unlawful to discriminate or harass someone based on a protected characteristic (gender, for example). While I am not up to speed on US legislation, I know that you have similar laws.
While the Army could not have predicted that AR would bludgeon VG to death on their premises, they are responsible for his behaviour while at work and IF there were warning signs or red flags, these should have been dealt with. Perhaps they were, we haven’t seen his disciplinary record. I say IF, because he may have been a model employee, we just don’t know.
The main issue for me is that while they have the SHARP program in place, it means nothing if it’s just a tick box exercise. If employees do not feel that they are able to speak up and report harassment, then the SHARP program obviously isn’t working on their base. Fort Hood needs to take a look at their culture and shape up fast, because it is not acceptable for any employee to feel that they cannot speak up about harassment. Even with reporting mechanisms in place so that you could bypass your superior, VG still didn’t feel that she could report what had been happening. If other employees feel the same way, then SHARP clearly isn’t effective on that base and change is needed, fast!
At this point, I don’t feel comfortable blaming Fort Hood for VG’s death. Harassment is one thing, but a brutal murder is something else. I’m not downplaying harassment, I’m simply stating that no employer would reasonably expect that harassment would lead to murder. They are responsible for allowing the harassment to happen by not having an appropriate culture for reporting, but they shouldn’t be held responsible for allowing a murder to happen, even if it is a direct result of the harassment. If AR had been reported, disciplined and removed from base for harassment then yes, VG would likely still be alive. Still, that doesn’t make Fort Hood responsible for her murder. We also don’t know for sure that AR was even one of the people harassing her.
IF AR was knowingly violent and displayed violent outbursts at his workplace, then I would 100% be comfortable in blaming Fort Hood for VG’s death. As soon as any employee becomes physically violent at work, you discipline and remove them for many reasons but above all, to protect all other employees. However, we don’t know this to be the case.
Even if Fort Hood were knowingly condoning harassment or turning a blind eye, how were they to know that it would result in murder? We don’t know if AR’s motive to kill VG was to cover up sexual harassment or if he became enraged that VG turned down his advances, but it’s clear that no matter how many policies or procedures were in place, if AR was capable of murder in the manner in which he murdered VG, then no company policy or procedure could have stopped it.
To conclude my ramblings, I guess I just feel that while there needs to be a serious review of the SHARP program and culture on the base to prevent this from happening again, with charges brought against those who turned a blind eye, I don’t feel comfortable hearing people suggest that Fort Hood is response for VG’s death. Not unless they knew he was prone to violence. They could have had the best anti harassment program in the world, but AR was clearly a monster.
