title: Recent fatal hospital shooting incidents: what lessons can be learned from them.
abstract: The shooting and killing of six persons in four separate hospital incidents in a three-month period has raised a number of questions about the need to arm security officers and to take steps to thwart armed visitors and patients. Of those killed, three were hospital employees (by the son of a former patient); one was an armed outsider and one was an armed mental patient (by security officers); one was a security officer (by an ER patient). Details of the shootings by the security officers, and the aftermath of those incidents, both of which occurred in August, are described in the article beginning on page one of the November 1999 issue of this newsletter. Details of the two other incidents that involved the deaths of hospital employees are the subject of this report.
mesh_terms: D002140:California; D003120:Colorado; D003299:Cooperative Behavior; D005389:Firearms; D006708:Homicide / Q000517:prevention & control*; D006764:Hospitals, Community / Q000458:organization & administration*; D006801:Humans; D010564:Personnel, Hospital; D012308:Risk Management / Q000458:organization & administration; D012637:Security Measures / Q000458:organization & administration*