The murder of Brian Thompson just outside of a New York City hotel has become, in the past 24 hours, both a tragic and also cautionary tale among CEOs and companies - both large and small. Security and law enforcement insiders all agree, any threat should not be dismissed, and should be taken seriously.
Former Buffalo Police Department lieutenant and Vista Security Group partner Jeff Rinaldo said threats should all be investigated and not just dismissed.
“Well I think what we see here locally is that if there's a threat made to a corporation, you really have to run these things down,” Rinaldo said. “Is the threat to the company as a whole or is it a threat targeting a particular executive of the company? And if so, what is the nature of the threat and what’s behind it? You know, security companies like mine, we routinely do security assessments, risk assessments for corporations to take a look at how they respond to these things and determine the appropriate level of security that any company needs for all of their employees, but especially when a threat is involved.”
Threats are more common than many may want to believe.
“I think again, depending on the information that comes out regarding the previously received threat, I think it is going to be cause for a number of companies to really reevaluate their stance on these circumstances,” Rinaldo said.
But could what happened to United Healthcare’s Brian Thompson happen here?
The short answer is, yes.
That’s why Rinaldo advocates for investigating any and all threats.
“It’s somewhat common, we deal with probably a dozen or so a year of our clients where there’s some type of either workplace violence issue or threat, and they want to amend their security measures, enhance them, for a period of time until they can allow law enforcement the time they need to conduct a thorough investigation and, if appropriate, bring charges,” Rinaldo said.
Brian Thompson’s murder is a sad reminder that threats to CEOs and companies are all too real.
