Wyatte Grantham-Philips and Matt Sedensky, Associated Press
NEW YORK (AP) – Businesses across the country are reassessing security after bold shootings in New York City’s office buildings raised questions about what it takes to keep workplaces safe.
The attack on seemingly safe buildings rattle workers in the golden section of Manhattan, where rich people live in vast apartments and tourist window shop designer stores, urging their managers to check if they are properly protected.
“What should we do?” The client said Brian Higgins, founder of Group 77, a security company in Mawa, New Jersey, was asking people who had a call influx on it. “How can I prevent this kind of thing?”
Higgins said the gut response for some companies is to buy the latest technology and cover the workplace with cameras. But he warned, it is only effective when combined with consistency and long-term surveillance.
“If you add security measures, you need to make sure you keep them,” said Higgins, a former police chief who teaches security at John Jay College of Criminal Justice.
Four people were killed in Monday’s shooting before the gunman died of suicide. Images of the shooter tot a long rifle on the streets of America’s biggest city, then terrorize office buildings, hoping to do something to prevent the scene from repeating.
“People are scared, people are asking questions,” said Dave Komendat, chief security officer for Seattle-based corporate security advisor.
Security companies are used to the rhythm of business as America is trapped in a virtually unparalleled pattern of gun violence in the world. While attacks in corporate offices are less common, large-scale shootings or attacks on executives temporarily bring security attention before they retreat.
“Give me a few weeks, a month or so and it’s back,” Higgins said of the increased call volume. “If security issues arise for a while and businesses begin to reconsider their budgets, security is one of the things they cut.”
Gene Petrino, CEO of Survival Response in Coral Springs, Florida, has also seen an increase in calls from potential new customers, but expects it to be fleeting.
“When things are calm, it’s seen as an expense that isn’t needed anytime soon,” he said.
Petrino said companies could make uninterrupted changes to use cameras with artificial intelligence to identify weapons. Sometimes it may be just a problem of improving lighting in the hallways or turning corners with a horny mirror up.
“It’s all bulletproof and there’s no need to be locked with security cameras everywhere,” he said. “You don’t have to be Fort Knox. You can have something very basic.”
Michael Evanoff, chief security officer at Verkada, a San Mateo, California-based building security company, said technologies like AI-enabled cameras can help identify threats.
“It’s more difficult for many people to find and maintain trained personnel than you realize,” Evanov said. “That’s even more important to equip security guards with technology that can expand their reach.”
New York Police Department officials had a unified security assignment for the security at 345 Park Avenue, the location of the shooting. He was among those killed.
Rudin, the leasing company that manages the building, did not respond to questions about when the building will reopen or whether new security measures will be in place. But no matter what, there is vulnerability in every workplace.
“The security team must be perfect 100% of the time,” said Komendat, former Chief Security Officer at Boeing. “People like this need to be lucky once.”
Original issue: July 30th, 2025, 6:53pm EDT
