On Tuesday afternoon, March 17, a distressed veteran named Lawrence Michels walked into the Department of Veterans Affairs community clinic in Jasper, Georgia—a small, quiet town nestled at the foot of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Staff escorted him for a mental health consultation with Nic Crews, the clinic’s social work case manager.
During the appointment, Michels drew a handgun, shot Crews, and fled the building. Local police intercepted him outside and exchanged gunfire, killing him.
Crews, 34, was airlifted to a hospital and died the following day, leaving a wife, two young children, and a third on the way.
To friends and colleagues, Crew’s devotion to veterans was unmistakable. His coworker, Joe Mulligan, described him as embodying “a faithful and relentless commitment to serving the mission of providing care to America’s veterans,” and working “with the utmost concern in promoting healing and recovery for our nation’s wounded.” Cody Porter, a close friend since college, said his VA work wasn’t a career but a calling. Porter noted, “He would tell me, ‘My heart just burns with compassion for these guys—for the way that they’ve served, for how much they’ve given up, and just how a lot of these guys are really broken.’”
Like most of the 1,193 VA community clinics, the Jasper, Georgia, facility had no armed VA police—unlike VA medical centers. Nor did it have a weapons detector —an absence, according to Florence Uzuegbunam, an Atlanta VA nurse practitioner and local National Nurses United associate director, that “would have saved two people—the veteran and Nic.”
Shortly after the shooting, VA Secretary Doug Collins, who grew up and later served as a U.S. Representative from the neighboring Georgia district, released a statement on X, pledging to “ensure clinic employees get the support they need.” Two days later, following confirmation of Crews’s death, Collins posted again, hailing Crews as a committed VA staffer and reiterating his pledge that “Nicholas’ family, coworkers, and local Veterans have the support they need during this difficult time.”
Collins never condemned the act itself, nor stated what should have been the bare minimum—that violence against providers is never an acceptable response to health care grievances. He also sent no message through VA channels to his broader workforce about how his office intended to thwart future threats, leaving the response to regional directors. When the Washington Monthly inquired, the VA declined to elaborate.
VA staff flooded Reddit with comments, denouncing the department’s leadership for not communicating directly with staff and placing the onus for safety and healing on employees. “A social worker was murdered this week,” wrote one. “I’m angry about the canned email from network directors reminding us of active threat training. I don’t want tweets from the VA Secretary or reminders of the Employee Assistance Program (EAP). I want action.”
The frustration cut deep. “An employee was killed, and all you can think of is that VA employees need to be trained better?” another VA worker wrote. “We would advocate for ourselves tirelessly, and they would give us an extra lecture about how we’re ultimately responsible for our safety—not leadership, not VA.”
Speaking with the Washington Monthly, one East Coast VA mental health manager said the killing compounded existing trauma: “What happened in Georgia was terrifying. We already felt unsafe doing our jobs without adequate VA police presence. Now this has happened. Honestly, I don’t believe VA leadership would care if something happened to us.”
Collins’s response stood in contrast to the VA’s strong track record of addressing workplace violence, which the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) defines as “any act or threat of physical violence, harassment, intimidation, or other threatening behavior that occurs at the work site.” Its Workplace Violence Prevention Program dates to 2012, and OSHA recognizes it as a model of best practices for health care settings.
The program is built on several core elements. Each facility maintains a multidisciplinary Disruptive Behavior Committee (DBC) and a platform where employees can file reports when they believe a patient poses a safety risk. The DBC reviews each case and issues tailored recommendations.
Under federal regulation, the VA cannot use disruptive behavior alone to deny or terminate care, though it can change how, when, and where care is delivered. The DBC may determine whether a security escort is warranted for a patient’s health care appointments and whether to place a flag in the patient’s record with guidance on how best to handle visits.
The VA has also crafted and refined a mandatory training curriculum for its employees. Its interventions emphasize de-escalation techniques and the creation of structured, therapeutic environments to help patients manage volatile emotions—an approach linked to lower assault rates.
Each VA facility also conducts an annual workplace behavioral risk assessment to pinpoint where targeted violence prevention training is most needed. These internal reviews do not address other deficiencies (such as unsecured entrances) or potential remedies.
Despite the VA’s well-developed framework, serious gaps remain.
Health care personnel in the United States face workplace violence at four times the rate of employees in other industries, and VA employees are no exception. Between fiscal years 2013 and 2024, incidents involving VA nurses rose 218 percent in inpatient medical/surgical units, 167 percent in nursing homes, 66 percent in inpatient psychiatry units, and 22 percent in emergency departments. This trend is accelerating. VA safety incidents overall increased 42 percent between fiscal years 2023 and 2024.
The consequences extend beyond those harmed. Health care workers who experience workplace violence have a higher risk of medical errors. More than 40 percent of health care professionals say they are considering leaving their positions within the next year because of safety concerns—a retention crisis that narrows patients’ access to care.
A chronic shortage of VA police officers is central to the problem. A 2023 VA Office of Inspector General (OIG) report found that the average vacancy rate for VA police officer positions stood at 33 percent nationally; at some facilities, it was 60 percent. Last year’s OIG report found that police are the most frequently named occupational shortage at the VA.
The scarcity has cascading effects. More than half of VA facilities fail to comply with a mandate requiring a continuous security presence in emergency departments. Surveillance footage goes unmonitored, doors remain unsecured, emergency responses lag, and escorts for at-risk veterans are provided inconsistently. Weapons detectors sit idle for lack of operators.
The underlying reason for the shortage is easy to identify: VA police compensation lags local law enforcement and other federal agencies. New hires—nearly 90 percent of whom are veterans—must complete a federally accredited law enforcement academy before they can serve. Once they have their credentials, many leave for better-paying positions. Signing bonuses offered by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) last year prompted a surge in departures. An already understaffed force has shrunk further, with total VA police falling by 491 positions between January 2025 and April 2026.
Most VA community clinics, even sizable ones serving thousands of veterans, have no VA police presence on site. Jim Aldridge—a retired Orlando, Florida, VA police officer with 30 years on the job and former VA agency president of the Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association—shared his personal views with the Washington Monthly, not speaking on behalf of the VA. “Saving money is the reason,” he said. “With limited budgets, most VA directors would rather hire medical professionals. Police officers aren’t highly valued.”
Meanwhile, the VA has been considering downgrades for 90 percent of its police force following the Office of Personnel Management’s conclusion that police, along with a handful of other positions, are improperly classified. Should that downgrade take effect, an exodus would likely follow. Legislation sponsored by Representative Tim Kennedy, a New York Democrat, would permanently block any such downgrading; it cleared the House Veterans’ Affairs Health Subcommittee in March and is now awaiting full committee consideration.
The gaps extend beyond police staffing into how the VA reports incidents. In 2021, Congress enacted the Deborah Sampson Act, named for a woman who disguised herself as a man to fight in the Revolutionary War. The legislation expanded VA services for women veterans, including a requirement that VA staff report observed instances of sexual harassment and assault. Data broken down by location and type flow annually to Congress. But the VA is not required to convey comparable detail about non-sex-based threats and assaults, leaving lawmakers and advocates unable to address those offenses properly.
Four reforms would improve workplace safety at the VA.
Raise police compensation. Recruiting and retaining VA medical center police requires aligning VA officer pay with local law enforcement compensation—using special pay authorities, retirement adjustments, or federal job title reclassification. These are reforms that federal labor unions and police organizations broadly support. The cost would be high, but the investment is essential.
Station VA police at every community clinic. Crews’s shooting underscores, in the starkest terms, why this staffing expansion is impossible to ignore.
Collect and publicize more information. Currently, the OIG assesses safety, verifies the implementation of prior recommendations, and issues new ones—but it audits only a portion of facilities. Every VA medical center and clinic needs a regular, comprehensive review. One approach would be to assemble inspection teams composed of national and regional Workplace Violence Prevention Program managers. Findings from these inspections should be made publicly available online, as should the internal data on non-sex-based threats and physical assaults against VA workers.
Strengthen messaging about conduct. All veterans enrolling in VA health care should receive a document that lays out their rights, the behavioral standards expected of patients toward staff and fellow patients, and the consequences of violating those standards—reinforcing the principle that violence against health care providers is never justifiable.
Crews’s murder galvanized swift action in Jasper, Georgia—a VA police officer and weapons detector were deployed to the clinic almost immediately. But no VA workplace should wait for tragedy before improving security. Veterans deserve providers who are focused on healing without fear. Those providers, in turn, merit leaders who, true to the military ethos, always “have their six.”
