Thursday December 6, 2001
Goshen, Indiana Shooting (Breaking News)
-the website for the factory where the shooting took place
-Indiana Secretary of State info on the factory and owner which is GR Plastics
-Last listed OSHA inspection
-A Map of the site
-City of Goshen contacts
-Nearby businesses
-Goshen is a city of 24,000 located 30 miles east of South Bend. It is know for its many business related to the recreational-vehicle industry. Goshen is the county seat of Elkhart County. The county is the home of large Old Order Amish and Mennonite communities.
-The Goshen News daily newspaper
-The Goshen Hospital
-See the site via satellite photo-enter in the street address 2508 Industrial Park Drive, Goshen, Indiana
–Preventing workplace violence resources
–Workplace violence facts and statistics from OSHA-Nearly 1,000 workers are murdered, and 1.5 million are assaulted in the workplace each year. According to the BLS Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries (CFOI)
-According to the Department of Justice’s National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS), assaults and threats of violence against Americans at work number almost 2 million a year.
The most common type of workplace violent crime was simple assault with an average of 1.5 million a year.
There were 396,000 aggravated assaults, 51,000 rapes and sexual assaults, 84,000 robberies, and 1,000 homicides.
Again, according to the NCVS, retail sales workers were the most numerous victims, with 330,000 being attacked each year. They were followed by:
police, with an average of 234,200 officers victimized.
The risk rate for various occupations was as follows: (per 1,000)
-Police officers 306
-Private security guards 218
-Taxi drivers 184
-Prison guards 117
-Bartenders 91
-Mental health professionals 80
-Gas station attendants 79
-Convenience, liquor store clerks 68
-Mental health custodial workers 63
-Junior high/middle school teachers 57
-Bus drivers 45
-Special education teachers 41
-High school teachers 29
-Elementary school teachers 16
-College teachers 3
What is the Most Admired Profession?
As you might expect right now, firefighters, nurses and the military are 1-2-3 on Gallup’s new survey. Only 29% of Americans asked said journalists have “high” or “very high” ethical standards. We barely beat out Congressmen.
As usual, used car salesmen are at the bottom of the list. Wouldn’t it be great to do a story with an honest car salesman who gets beat up year after year by public distrust? . Fifty-two percent of Americans rate car salesmen either “low” (39%) or “very low” (13%) on honesty and ethics, the largest number by far for any group.
Gallup said, “The police have experienced an improvement in their ratings in the past several years. In 1995, the year of the O.J. Simpson trial, only 41% gave the police a high rating, the lowest rating in a decade.”
The “Crack Cocaine” of Gambling
Stateline.org says: “When New York lawmakers cobbled together a budget agreement in October authorizing the use of slot machines and video gambling terminals in the Empire State, they opened the door to games of chance that critics call the “crack cocaine” of gambling.
At a time when many states are starved for cash, New York’s agreement to allow the games — which can be a tremendous source of revenue but are extremely addictive — could be a harbinger of things to come. “I don’t know what the expansion is going to be in video lottery terminals,” said David Gale, executive director of the North American Association of State and Provincial Lotteries. “But I do know that it’s something lotteries could look at if they wanted to increase net revenues and profits to the state.”
Video gambling terminals are common across the country, but not always legal. Bars, restaurants and truck stops in many states use the games to boost their bottom lines. These so-called “gray machines” are often unregulated. But in five states — Delaware, Oregon, Rhode Island, South Dakota, and West Virginia — the games are maintained as part of an official lottery organization. New York is now prepared to join to this group, but must first contend with lawsuits designed to block the move.
How much do lotteries bring in? Click here for a state by state breakdown.
Rhode Island, South Dakota and Delaware are the highest per capita spending states. In Rhode Island the amount spent on lotteries is equal to more than $8 for every man woman and child who lives there.
Lawyer Billings and the Economy
“Despite the weakening economy, law firm billing rates continue to rise, according to data gathered as part of The National Law Journal’s 2001 survey of the nation’s 250 largest law firms. These rate increases, however, appear to be generally a bit lower than last year’s. At the high end, 14 firms have joined the 600 club — their highest billing rate is $600 per hour or higher. These firms are:
– Houston’s Bracewell & Patterson
– Boston’s Brown, Rudnick, Freed & Gesmer
– Palo Alto, Calif.’s Cooley Godward
– Washington, D.C.’s Dow Lohnes & Albertson
– Palo Alto’s Gray Cary Ware & Freidenrich Greenberg Traurig;
– New York’s Hughes Hubbard & Reed
– Los Angeles’ Manatt, Phelps & Phillips;
– Columbia, S.C.’s Nelson Mullins Riley & Scarborough
– San Francisco’s Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe
– Washington, D.C.’s Patton Boggs
– Miami’s Steel Hector & Davis
– Dallas’ Strasburger & Price
– Baltimore’s Venable.
Joe Altonji, a director in the Chicago office of Somerset, N.J.’s Hildebrandt International, a management consulting firm, says “I think in recent months, you are seeing more pressure on fees. … There is significant push-back from clients of the more commodity-type practices — such as lower-level litigation, parts of the IP world, some lending work and routine kinds of business work. Parts of employment practice are also facing pressure because bigger chunks of the work are becoming subject to insurance.” He expects there to be little price pressure in practices like bankruptcy, where there is still a great demand for lawyers.