Desperate workers can turn to violence Strains of delays, pain from injuries dangerous mixture By Bob Norberg Press Democrat staff writer In Santa Rosa a year ago, a man fired a shot through his apartment ceiling into the bedroom of a neighbor, narrowly missing people sleeping in bed. Another man was shot to death in the lobby of the Santa Rosa Police Department, where he had been acting erratically. Just recently a man shot himself, his wife and his daughter to death in their Santa Rosa home. A year ago, a former Marine shot himself to death in the office of Peninsula Rep. Tom Lantos, where he had been seeking help in clearing up his dispute over his disability claim. Three years ago, in Emeryville, a disabled worker came back to work, confronted a personnel analyst for the company in a dispute over his benefits and later followed her into the parking lot, where he shot her with a handgun. Also three years ago, during a meeting with a workers compensation judge in Santa Monica, a woman pulled a pistol out of a purse and shot herself in the head. A year earlier in a Los Angeles workers compensation hearing room, a judge disarmed a disabled worker who was holding a small-caliber pistol to the head of an attorney representing the man's former employer. The common thread in these cases, according to police, attorneys and state officials, was all of the people were injured workers, with their cases entrenched in the workers compensation bureaucracy. The obvious question is whether the violence was the result of a person having to deal with the injury and the system, or the result of personal demons that already were haunting the person, said Robert Baron, a Santa Rosa psychiatrist. The answer, Baron said, probably is both. ''There are individuals who play out the psychological problems of a lifetime through their injury,'' Baron said. ''It can get pretty drawn out for the claimant, and they snap. They can be just overwhelmed.'' According to a Press Democrat analysis of state computer data, disputed cases -- about 20 percent of all workers comp claims -- take an average three years to resolve, while the injured worker is left to deal with the disability and economic hurdles. There is widespread agreement the situation can turn dangerous. ''Violence is a very serious problem,'' said Chris Voight, spokesman for the Association of California State Attorneys and Administrative Law Judges. ''Judges and the lawyers who appear before the judges all see this. ''You have people who have been waiting for months or years for closure and they're broke and they're desperate. They're very emotional about their illness and their economic situation. Threats are not at all uncommon and people are worried about it.'' The problem is so serious that Voight's association is renewing its call for metal detectors for all workers compensation courtrooms, where there presently are no security measures, not even bailiffs with sidearms. Advocates for injured workers call for a different response. ''Wouldn't you think they'd try to fix what's causing the despair, instead of just locking themselves up tighter?'' asks a frustrated Dorsey Hamilton, founder of Compensation Alert, a nonprofit group that helps injured workers. When an incident with a disabled worker does occur, it is likely to generate headlines. Even if the link to the disability never is mentioned, it often is obvious to the lawyers and families of the disabled person. ''It's pretty common and you're going to see a lot more of it,'' said Don Galine, the attorney for Victor Francis, the former Marine who killed himself in Lantos' office. ''We had one case where I was talking to the wife on the phone and the guy was shooting holes in the floor while we were talking. I was listening to the shooting. It is very common for people to become totally frustrated with the system. ''The death (of Francis) is definitely related to the workers comp system -- they cut off all his benefits,'' Galine said. ''He was so disillusioned and distraught. Here you had a hard-working guy, a veteran, and he couldn't work and he was broke.'' ©1997 The Press Democrat