MERIDIAN - The girlfriend of Doug Williams, who shot 14 people in a factory before killing himself, said Lockheed Martin should have done more to help Williams.
Shirley Price said Williams had sought help from his employer for more than a year.
"He was a man pushed to the point to where he broke," she said at a memorial service for the victims.
Others also say management should be questioned in how Doug Williams could have entered the plant unimpeded Tuesday with a shotgun and a semiautomatic rifle.
"This is a serious problem," said Dale Yeager, president of Seraph Inc., a Philadelphia, Pa., consulting firm that specializes in, among other things, workplace violence.
"It's got to be resolved by industry taking this more seriously. This isn't about cameras, and about metal detectors, this is about management issues," Yeager said.
Nine other workers were wounded in the shooting, what Yeager called a "preventable crime."
"When you have high absenteeism, when you have problems with following rules and regulations, you have a profile. You have a troubled employee and you have to handle them correctly," Yeager said.
There were no security cameras focused on the plant floor or the annex where the attack occurred, said Dain Hancock, president of Lockheed Martin Aeronautics.
Lauderdale County Sheriff Billy Sollie said the plant's "employees have free and unobstructed access to enter and exit."
The plant had adequate security compared to others like it, Hancock said.
"Obviously, this event and others around the country have employers reassessing what is required," Hancock said.
Others say Lockheed Martin should have recognized the warning signs and taken steps sooner. Some surviving employees and relatives of some the victims said Williams' past conduct indicated that he had problems.
Lockheed spokesman Sam Grizzle said Thursday that Williams' employment records "do not indicate that he came forward and asked for (help)."
Hancock said other than two instances of unacceptable behavior - one two years ago and another in June - Williams' record indicated a "solid" performance over nearly 20 years at Lockheed.
Mark Franks, president of Mark Franks Consulting, in Oxford, said it's important to see the signs of a troubled individual before it's too late.
"People who are in these situations need something good to happen to them and they need somebody to intervene," he said. "Today when someone makes a threat of violence you have to treat that with the utmost seriousness. I don't know if that was done."
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