Armed robbery in San Bruno retail store. Palm Desert mall suspect was tased in the parking lot. Multiple fights break out in San Francisco malls. These are just a few incidents consuming newspapers, websites, and stories occurring more frequently compared to past years.

Violence is seen everywhere, whether it be in grocery stores, at schools, or even in nail salons and offices. Any place can fall victim to violence or significant threats, and affect anyone and everyone.

According to the CDC, “Retail work is one of the highest-risk jobs for workplace violence. Violence isn’t just hitting, fighting, and shooting. It can also be sexual harassment, rape, bullying, stealing, and verbal abuse.”

Employees at the Tanforan Mall in San Bruno have experienced these situations firsthand and have recently noticed a rise in violence at malls.

“Since the start of the pandemic, we saw an increase in violence from guests or customers,” said Danny Inalod, a closing team lead at Tanforan’s Target. Inalod, a Target employee since 2001, has noticed an increase over the last few years, starting at the end of 2019.

At the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, there were several incidents of fights over shortages of items at stores. That violent atmosphere lingers almost two years later, putting retail and chain store workers at risk.

Assault is the fourth leading cause of workplace deaths and falls into four categories: criminal intent, customer and client interaction, and personal along with worker-on-worker relationships. Even if these acts of assault do not lead to a fatal outcome, they are still prevalent in the average day of retail workers and create problems in the workplace.

This story was originally formatted as a Grid. Click on the links below to view the Grid chapters. 

Struggles of security

Through the eyes of employees

Combatting the issue

This story was originally published on Scot Scoop News on October 30, 2022.