FROM THE ARCHIVES: How to Handle Poison Pen Letters

By Mark Brenzinger, Timothy Flora, and Henry Rush

09/07/2010 -

In the aftermath of the Discovery Channel headquarters' hostage crisis, Security Management dives into its archives to bring you an article from February on poison pen letters. While the article deals with threatening letters, we believe the authors' advice applies to other kinds of incidents, such as the strange protest actions of the now deceased hostage taker James Lee.

Threatening behavior aimed at a company or its personnel should be investigated and the appropriate legal action taken if necessary, authors Mark Brenzinger, Timothy Flora, and Henry Rush argue. Threats do not even have to be based in reality, they explain. "Sometimes, however, the threat may be rooted in delusional belief systems that may involve grandiose, persecutory, or paranoid themes as opposed to any rational motivation." According to Wired.com, Lee's actions were motivated by an extremist environmental philosophy that saw human beings as an environmental pollutant destroying the planet.

Before Lee strapped propane tanks to himself, armed himself with a starter pistol, and took hostages, he would regularly protest in front of the Discovery Channel's Silver Springs, Maryland, headquarters. In one protest action from 2008, Lee "made it rain" outside Discovery by throwing money into the air. The incident, caught on YouTube, caused a commotion as people scurried to grab the money. Because of the incident, Lee was arrested and eventually convicted of "disorderly conduct," with the judge telling him to stay 500 feet away from Discovery headquarters.

Underscoring the importance of taking strange or threatening behaviors seriously, security officers at Discovery immediately believed the perpetrator was Lee, according to The Associated Press. "Even in the first minutes after the siege began, Discovery security had an idea of who they were dealing with," reports the AP. "A security employee calmly tells a 911 operator that they believe the man with what looks like an improvised explosive device in the lobby is Lee."

-- Matthew Harwood

How to Handle Poison Pen Letters

February 2010

By Mark Brenzinger, Timothy Flora, and Henry Rush

The CEO of a large insurance corporation received a threatening letter from an unknown individual. In the letter, which was sent to the executive’s home address, the writer expressed outrage because of delays in the settlement of claims and of unjust monetary compensation.

The writer demanded a $2.75 million settlement or the CEO’s family would be physically harmed. To underscore the threat, the writer included detailed, accurate information about the daily schedules of the CEO, her husband, and her children. That made corporate authorities take the letter seriously.

Many companies lack policies and procedures to address threatening anonymous correspondence. They tend simply to dismiss it as “nut mail” before discarding it. That’s the wrong approach. Companies should not ignore this type of correspondence. Protection agents should investigate any perceived threat and apply available assets and resources to mitigate the potential for physical harm and psychological trauma to the identified targets. And security should develop protocols for handling and analyzing these threats using a collaborative approach that brings security managers, investigators, and mental health risk experts to the same table.

Reacting to a Threat

In the case of the CEO in our example, the company did not have policies in place to address the threats. At best, any threatening correspondence sent to the company’s field offices was forwarded to the organization’s headquarters. Of those correspondences, almost all were interpreted as a low risk by security, primarily because the communiqués came from an unknown source. Most cases were never investigated, but fortunately the correspondence was not thrown out: it was stored in a closet.

When the CEO received the threatening letter that included such personal details, it finally prompted an investigation. As a result, the company discovered that the CEO’s personal assistant had kept back three harassing letters from the same writer because she did not want to upset her boss. Clearly, action needed to be taken.

The CEO and the organization’s security director began by calling local police to file a complaint. The police response was that little could be done, because the department did not have the resources to investigate an unknown threat-maker.

FROM THE ARCHIVES: How to Handle Poison Pen Letters

How to Handle Poison Pen Letters

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