Workplace Violence Robbery: Restaurant Reputation

The media onslaught following Wendy’s robbery with multiple homicide victims once again brought national attention to the risk of workplace violence at fast-food and late-night convenience store operations.

Corporate Wendy’s response to the media was:

How can we foresee and prevent such tragedies when robbers are so vicious and uncaring about human life.

This weak message failed to announce the contributing factor about why this particular restaurant was selected as a robbery target. It seems that one of the robbers had worked at this Wendy’s before and had inside information about the restaurant cash handling practices and its security procedures.

It’s no coincidence that this same robber also worked at a McDonald’s a year before and subsequently robbed it. He apparently had a warrant out for his arrest for failing to appear in court on that charge when he committed Wendy’s robbery homicides.

Workplace Violence Robbery: Target Selection

Research tells us that most robbers pre-select their business targets. Up until the moment that the robbers commit themselves to the crime, they are subject to being deterred.

Studies have told us that robbers have a risk/reward criterion, but consider two main factors when choosing a location to rob:

1. Lots of available cash.
2. The ability to escape and get away fast.

Examples of risk criteria that might dissuade robbers are:

• The number of employees on duty
• High customer traffic at the counter and drive-thru
• Video surveillance cameras
• Silent hold-up alarm systems
• Bad escape routes and traffic barriers
• The presence of armed security guards or the police.

The balancing factor is the perception of available cash versus the risk of getting caught. The greater the reward the more risk they will undertake.

In Wendy’s case, the robbers netted $2,400 (mostly in coin) and undertook great risk. The robbers probably expected to get three times that amount before committing to the risk controlling seven Wendy’s workers during the commission of this crime.

Workplace Violence Robbery: Security Plan

The key points to workplace violence robbery prevention are to limit available cash and put the restaurant security plan out in the open so the potential robbers (even when disguised as former employees) can discover them. This way, the robbers can see, in advance, that your location is a poor target because of limited amounts of available cash and because the chances of getting caught are increased.

Most businesses tend to hide their security measures fearing that the robbers will discover them and overcome the measures. Nothing can be further from the truth.

This theory of deterrence has been validated many times from interviews with incarcerated robbers and by the dropping crime rate at former targets. It’s simple math, good targets get robbed more frequently than poor targets.

Criminals will still look you over but if you are doing it right the robbers will go down the street to find an easier and more lucrative target.

Workplace Violence Robbery: Deterrence Begins Within

In a business like Wendy’s, workplace violence robbery deterrence training starts during the hiring procedures. Employee background and reference checks tell prospective applicants that they better not lie on their employment application.

If a restaurant is consistent with this policy the word will get out on the street so bad applicants won’t even bother to apply. This former Wendy’s employee turned robber should have been rejected during the screening process.

We also now know that one robber was a former McDonald’s employee who was fired for dishonesty. How on earth did he get hired at Wendy’s?

During the training process, all new employees should be taught about robbery prevention procedures. These procedures should be designed to send a message to everyone that this Wendy’s restaurant has solid cash control measures in place and has a video surveillance system with the videotape locked in a secure housing.

This training should tell employees that excess cash is stored in a time-delay drop safe that cannot be immediately opened by the restaurant manager or that daily deposit can only be retrieved by an armored car security guard. If these procedures were implemented and taught to all employees, these robbers may have chosen an easier and more lucrative target.

Good workplace violence robbery deterrence procedures should make it clear that large amounts of money were not readily available to anyone, including the manager. This is accomplished by using a time-delay feature on a safe that requires a waiting period of say 10-20 minutes before it can be opened.

It is well settled that most robbers won’t wait around for 10-20 minutes for a time-delayed safe to unlock. This fact should be communicated to all employees and to the public by highly visible signage and the practice of dropping all large bills into a drop safe.

Maybe that procedure wasn’t implemented at this restaurant or maybe the procedures were kept secret and the robbers incorrectly perceived a big score.

Workplace Violence Robbery: Why it Turns Violent

Most commercial robberies occur in less than a minute and without physical violence or injury to the employees. In this case, the robbers took the time to relocate, bind, and gag all seven employees before killing them, execution style.

To murder all the witnesses is not an original idea but still is a rare occurrence. It has happened before where a former employee has killed everyone to conceal his identity following a robbery. But why not wear a disguise?

To plan such a grisly crime, the robber must have believed that a large amount of cash was available and therefore was somehow worth the risk of being identified. We know now that the robbery loss was less than $2,400. That’s not a huge amount of cash for an urban Wendy’s restaurant if the robbers accessed the safe.

However, you can’t always analyze street logic and the desperation of an armed robbery scenario. We don’t know how desperate or sober the robbers were at the time. A robbery of $2,400 could buy a lot of drugs on the street or supply emergency traveling money.

Workplace Violence Robbery: How to Prevent It?

• Did this restaurant operate at risk by not having adequate security systems and procedures?
• Could it be that the restaurant had already made a bank deposit unbeknownst to the robbers or did the restaurant improve their cash handling procedures since the time they employed the robber?
• Did the restaurant manager either refuse or could not open the safe and was killed for it?
• Sometimes combination dial safes are impossible to open under duress.
• Were the subsequent murders committed to cover up the murder of the manager?

I’m not going to second-guess what could or should have been done to prevent this crime until all the facts become known. The whole truth about what security systems and procedures existed at this

Wendy’s restaurant will come out during the criminal investigation and during the multiple lawsuits that will undoubtedly be filed on behalf of the victim’s families.

Meanwhile, don’t you think the men’s clothing store where this assailant worked were shaking in their boots when they learned that they had hired a man who robs and kills former employers?

I guess background checks were not done at that clothing store either.

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