Dateline — Menlo Park, Calif.

“Employee” at computer company goes on killing spree: Sun Microsystems tests its defenses against a Columbine-type massacre

It could have been Columbine all over again. SWAT teams circled a sprawling campus. The sound of semi-automatic weapons punctuated the air. News trucks gathered in an adjoining parking lot. But when a “killer employee” opened fire at Sun Microsystems’ high-tech campus last Saturday night, the bullets were blanks and the SWAT team was composed of off-duty cops moonlighting as security officers for the Menlo Park-based computer company.

Simulating shootings to test security systems has become an increasingly popular response to the tragedy at Columbine High School. Across the nation, schools, and employers alike are staging drills to prepare students and staff members for invasions by armed intruders.

At Sun Microsystems’ isolated Menlo Park campus it was a typical Saturday night despite the fact that it was a holiday weekend. At 10:00 p.m., hundreds of employees were still at their desks. Dozens more had drifted to the company’s outdoor amphitheater to watch an impromptu pre-July 4th fireworks display.

But before the show was over, the real fireworks were happening on the ground. A “gunman” dressed in jeans and a T-shirt entered the amphitheater carrying two automatic pistols. He walked with deliberation through the gathered crowd and fired off 40 rounds before retreating to a nearby campus building.

Several “survivors” used their cell phones to call for help while others attended to the medical needs of the almost two-dozen downed employees. When a final count was made, it was ascertained that 14 people were “dead” and another eight “seriously wounded.”

Minutes later shots were heard in the nearby building. When the SWAT team arrived on the scene heavily armed officers evacuated the campus and secured the perimeter of the building where the “gunman” was holed up. Using office blueprints as their guide, SWAT team members infiltrated the structure via an air conditioning vent and ambushed their target. After tackling and disarming the “gunman,” an officer dressed in paramilitary garb gave the young man a hand up and asked politely, “I didn’t hurt you, son, did I?”

Despite the niceties, the exercise was far from over. Paramedics rushed in to conduct triage on the workers who had been trapped in the alcoves of the building’s central hallway. Other employees were coaxed out of offices where doors had been barricaded to prevent entry. By the stroke of midnight, five people had been declared “dead” and six others were carried out on litters to waiting ambulances. Personnel workers pored over staff records searching for next of kin information for the “dead” and “wounded.” Public relations representatives prepared and released official press statements.

Had it been an actual shooting rampage and not a company-sanctioned simulation, it would have been the worst workplace shooting in California history. In the end the official “death toll” set at 20, with 14 others reported “injured.”

Sun Microsystems security chief John Cashman, the architect of the elaborate drill, was generally pleased with the results. “Taking into account the extremity of the situation, I think we acquitted ourselves rather well,” the ex-FBI agent remarked. “This place is a fortress which makes it hard to get out as well as in. They don’t call it ‘Sun Quentin’ for nothing.”

Others were not so gung ho about the exercises. John Pacheco, who was in the amphitheater when shots first rang out, was less than enthusiastic. “Fire drills are one thing but having an entire SWAT team take over your workplace is totally creepy,” the product manager exclaimed. “But I suppose it’s not inconceivable that someone could lose it and start shooting up the place.”

Jennifer Lopinski, a human resources manager, took note of the reservations expressed by Pacheco and other employees. Though sympathetic, she insisted that the information gained from the drill outweighed any possibly detrimental effect on current employees.

Pointing out the alcoves in the central hallway where five “deaths” occurred, she said the company had gained invaluable information about how to lessen the impact of a shooting should one occur.

“Take the interior design of all building hallways. We equipped hallway alcoves with whiteboards to encourage employee interaction outside of their offices,” she explained. “But in a situation like the one we staged here tonight, those conversational areas became veritable death traps. I’m going to recommend we get rid of them.”