"threatened to push him into a 5,000 gallon tank filled with acid"

The Aluminium Plant Safety Blog editors feel that we have a good sense on what is occurring in the industry with regards to the common hazards such as; molten metal explosions, moveable equipment, safe isolation, confined space, etc. We do not have a feeling on how wide spread workplace violence is in our industry. Why is that? There are a myriad of reasons. Mostly incidents of workplace violence rarely make it into the news. Regardless, we do acknowledge that plants in our industry deal with workplace violence in some aspect. We have reported on terrorists who attempted to blow up an aluminium plant, disgruntle workers who bring guns to their workplace, etc. Here is a recent story that highlights the continued need for education to prevent workplace violence.

Local police arrested man after authorities say he choked his supervisor. The accused worker was arrested one evening during the week of January 3^rd, 2016 at an electronics store, according to official police records.

Officials say on one day in March 2015, the accused choked a man who was his supervisor at an aluminium company in the Midwest United States. Authorities say that at the time of the incident, the victim was speaking with the accused regarding his job performance.

The official warrant says the accused began "arguing with the victim and threatened to push him into a 5,000 gallon tank filled with acid."

Police say the accused then grabbed the victim around the throat with both hands and choked the man.

Investigators say the victim was able to break free and that accused, then "punched the victim several times about the face."

The official warrant states that the victim went to the hospital to receive treatment for "a laceration about his right eye requiring stitches, a fracture of the maxillary sinus, fracture of (the) orbital eye socket, and a deviated trachea."

The accused is charged with assault and wanton endangerment. He is being held on a $50,000 cash bond.

The Aluminium Plant Safety Blog hopes that the injured worker recovered fully from his physical and any mental injuries. We also hope the accused was terminated with cause from the aluminium company on the day of the assault. Yet again we hope that the company management and plant manager looked at this incident and asked “why did this happen?” and “how can we prevent this from happening again?”

Upon reading this story we questioned the accuracy of the date the incident and the date of the arrest. We confused by the 10+ month time span between both events. So we reached out to the news media company who published the story. Here was their response.

The dates are correct. It was not made clear on (the accused’s) arrest warrant why such a length of time passed between the alleged assault and his arrest.

Hope this helps.

We wonder if the victim waited this long to press charges or if the deadline to file charges was approaching. Regardless, the accused man will have his day in court.

Please Comment.