Recent string of violence at Chicago workplaces raises concerns about employee weapon possession

Authorities don’t know why Mehdi Medellel shot and killed two people in a JJ Fish & Chicken on Monday night. It’s not even clear if the fast-food worker should have had a gun at work at all.

The double homicide at the Ashburn restaurant was the latest in a string of recent violent workplace attacks that occurred in the Chicago area earlier this week involving employees carrying weapons on the job.

Just hours after a Bears victory at Soldier Field on Sunday, a man employed by a company offering food and beverage services at the football stadium slashed his co-worker with a knife following a verbal altercation. Earlier that day in the south suburb of Calumet City, a Walgreens employee with a concealed carry license fatally shot a suspected shoplifter who had pulled a gun on the store workers.

Experts on occupational safety say that these recent incidents bring to light the importance of employers taking proactive steps to plan for and prevent workplace violence.

Workplace violence is a “known and dangerous workplace hazard,” particularly in retail environments, said Jessica Martinez, co-executive director of the National Council for Occupational Safety and Health.

“As we’re learning in Chicago, these are not isolated or rare occurrences,” Martinez said. “The ideal is that employers should have a plan in place so these things are preventable. Ideally, the plan should include worker engagement and involvement to address these hazards, same as (for) a risk of fire, extreme weather events, infectious disease, risk of working with heavy machinery.”

Workplace violence — which can occur during targeted robberies as well as in conflicts between employees or with customers — is one of the leading causes of job-related deaths in the United States, according to the Department of Labor. The Bureau of Labor Statistics’ most recent annual census of fatal occupational injuries, which compiled data from 2022, found that 524 workplace homicides had occurred that year, with over 80% of the incidents involving firearms.

Under Illinois law, if not explicitly prohibited by the employer, the presumption is that employees with the proper licensing are allowed to come to work with firearms. JJ Fish & Chicken could not be reached for comment about its weapons policy, and authorities declined to comment whether the employee had a concealed carry license.

Before a Cook County judge on Wednesday, prosecutors alleged a brief interaction between Medellel and one of the victims, who after entering the restaurant just before the shooting showed Medellel items he had in a suitcase.

After seeing the suitcase items and walking to the kitchen, Medellel allegedly returned to the dining area and shot the man with the suitcase. The second victim, prosecutors said, was seated and tried to move away from Medellel before being shot. Both victims were men in their 50s.

Records show that Medellel was found guilty in 2022 of domestic battery in Cook County Circuit Court, and that terms of his conditional discharge barred him from possessing firearms or other weapons until March 2023.

Medellel now faces two counts of first-degree murder, authorities said.

On the morning after the shooting, hungry customers found the restaurant closed.

Brandyn Falconer, who visits the restaurant a few times a month, stumbled over his words thinking about the killings that led to the employee’s arrest.

“I’m just so shocked, and I’m like, I really want to understand what, what the actual, what really went on,” Falconer, 46, of Ashburn, said Tuesday.

Chicago saw another string of incidents of workplace violence in late May of this year. During a single week , a worker at Ross department store was stabbed, a subcontractor at a Portillo’s allegedly attacked a co-worker with knives over a domestic dispute, an employee allegedly stabbed a co-worker at City Winery in the West Loop, and another allegedly pulled a gun on co-workers at the downtown Eataly location.

Experts said these types of violence demonstrate the importance of individual employers creating a sensible weapons policy, particularly given the lenience of state law when it comes to employees bringing concealed firearms to work.

“Organizations should not allow access to firearms within their premises,” said Sean Ahrens, a security consultant in the Chicago area. “In a situation where there is a dispute that (results in) someone acting out, having access to a firearm or another implement that can create significant harm, like a knife, is detrimental. So we should always attempt to keep those tools away from individuals in those types of instances.”

Even when acting in self-defense during a robbery, Ahrens said, employees with concealed carry licenses may use weapons incorrectly and put themselves or others in danger due to a lack of training — police may even mistake them for an aggressor, he said.

The Illinois Firearm Concealed Carry Act, passed in 2013, allows individual employers to decide whether to ban guns from their workplaces through visible signage and a written weapons policy, according to the Illinois State Bar Association . A few exceptions to this rule exist: Regardless of the employer’s personal stance, concealed carry license holders are prohibited from bringing their guns to certain workplaces, including hospitals, professional sports stadiums, airports and most bars.

Walgreens has a policy prohibiting any weapons in the workplace, a spokesperson confirmed Wednesday. The Walgreens spokesperson added that the company “takes the matter very seriously” and is cooperating with local police.

Martinez said that even if an employer does decide to allow guns or other weapons in their workplace, they need to thoroughly regulate and monitor their storage, location and use.

Though at first glance a workplace shooting may seem “random and unpredictable,” it is in fact possible to prepare for and mitigate the risk of such events, Martinez said. Employers should keep track of any threatening behavior from employees or customers before it escalates into violence, she said. Businesses should also take practical safety steps such as securing entrances and exits of the building, installing proper lighting and not having employees work alone, she added.

The federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration “doesn’t have standards in place to regulate workplace violence,” wrote a spokesman for the Illinois Department of Labor in an email to the Tribune on Tuesday.

Though the Illinois branch of OSHA enforces workplace safety plans for state and local government employers, private employers — including all three companies involved in the recent violent incidents — have the freedom to create their own policies when it comes to preventing violence at their business.

Yet this doesn’t mean that employers have no obligations. In the case of a violent incident at their business, they can certainly face legal liability for failing to provide a safe workplace, according to personal injury attorney Patrick Salvi II, who is the managing partner of the Chicago office of Salvi, Schostok & Pritchard PC.

After a violent incident, Salvi said, the people involved often look back and realize there had been signals indicating that “someone has a propensity or the capability of being violent in the workplace, with or without weapons.” Ignoring obvious signs can lead to the employer incurring legal responsibility, in addition to endangering employees and customers, he said.

Salvi added that when it comes to the violent use of weapons in the workplace by employees, underlying mental health issues are often a factor. Employers should provide employees with phone numbers of crisis lines and other resources for consistent mental health support, he said.

“If there’s any sort of notice, or if there’s a failure in training protocols, or if there’s a failure in prevention that otherwise should have been done and would have prevented the occurrence, then that liability would attach to the employer,” Salvi said. “It really comes back to having proper hiring, training and supervision protocols, along with acting upon any instances when red flags come up that a potential employee or a current employee could be violent.”