Potential Violence Just Outside Company Property

This is a little long-winded but I could really use some input. Our non-union plant has a road that runs right past the parking lot for one of our mfg. buildings. The road is mostly used by our employees, but it is a city road. One of our female employees is involved in a long-running dispute with her husband. We have called the police twice because he slashed the tires on her car (which he owns) in our parking lot. On Friday afternoon at the end of the shift she was sitting in the car with another employee who is her cousin. They were on the road outside the parking lot. Apparently they were going to drive off in the car and leave her husband who had come to pick her up but was outside of the car. The husband reached in to try to take the key out of the ignition and it broke off. The cousin picked up a piece of board and threatened the husband with it. We called the police (who know this couple well)and the husband ended up having the car towed away while the wife was off getting a new key made. My question is - can we discipline these employees since the incident did not occur on our property? We are concerned that this will escalate and endanger our employees. We can (and have) forbidden the husband to come on our property, but the road is so close that anything on it will affect other employees.

Comments

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  • Sunny: Have you called the Jerry Springer show yet? Just kidding. We have a similar situation with a city road running right up the side of one of our manufacturing plants. Our company parking lot is across the road from that city road. Strange things happen on this city road day and night, some involving our off duty workers, but, still on city property. We're pretty much slatemated from doing anything about it since it's not on our property and they've usually clocked out and left the property. If your employee won't press charges, I don't know that there's any action you can take other than to warn her and caution others familiar with her situation.
  • Thanks Don. That's what I was afraid of. Maybe Jerry Springer would be interested. Just as a sidelight, one of the cops asked the husband why he didn't leave her since he knew she was running around on him. He just whined, "but I love her."
  • Slashed tires, keys broken off in the ignition, promised of knuckles upside the head.......some have strange ways indeed of expressing affection. If she's on your group insurance policy, prepare for claims.
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