HACKENSACK, N.J. — On Friday morning, Jeffrey Johnson, who lost his job as a clothing designer a year ago, shot and killed Steven Ercolino, the vice president of the women's apparel company where Johnson had worked, near the Empire State Building.
Johnson and Ercolino had exchanged accusations of harassment when Johnson worked at Hazan Imports, according to New York City Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly. Police said Johnson blamed the victim for his dismissal, believing Ercolino had failed to promote Johnson's line of women's T-shirts.
Friday's events have placed a spotlight on homicides in the workplace. Yet government data show such crimes are down dramatically.
From 2004 to 2008, an average of 564 work-related homicides occurred annually in the United States. In 2010, the most recent year available, there were 518, down more than 50 percent since peaking in 1994, according to the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics.
This is a trend that is surprising given the economic burden facing millions during and since the Great Recession, said Dr. Ronald Schouten, director of Law and Psychiatry Services at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston.
"In spite of the terrible economic conditions we've had, they just do not seem to have given rise to the increase of workplace homicides in general and those perpetuated by current or former co-workers," said Schouten, also an associate professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. Schouten added that the trend follows the overall decrease in violent crime nationwide.