John Barnett had worked for Boeing for 32 years, until his retirement in 2017.
In the days before his death, he had been giving evidence in a whistleblower lawsuit against the company.
Boeing said it was saddened to hear of Mr Barnett’s passing. The Charleston County coroner confirmed his death to the BBC on Monday.
It said the 62-year-old had died from a “self-inflicted” wound on 9 March and police were investigating.
They should really make some sort of incentive to keep these people alive. Like if a whistle blower dies before the verdict of the trial/hearing make it an automatic assumption and multiply the punishment by 3 times (Treble!). Then you would have companies doing everything to not have whistle blowers die, not what we have today.
Your competitors take out contract hits against your whistleblower and you need to have bodyguards to protect them.
And then your head of security and the whistleblower fall in love until at the end of the movie the competitor assassin gets into the court waiting room and the head of security throws themselves into the ninja star’s way and dies in the whistleblower’s arms as the ultimate sacrifice is made for love and corporate profits.
I tear up just thinking about it.
Bravo. Hope you make Hollywood kid, you got the vision we need.
The current vision in Hollywood is sequels, reboots and milking any IP for all its worth.
Don’t underestimate the franchise potential of The Whistleblower Bodyguard 4: Furious at Fast Food.
“They didn’t salt the god damned fries AGAIN!?”
organizes heist
I see this as an absolute win. Also kinda liking the idea of big companies spending money in a spy vs spy sort of thing.
They do have an disincentive, its called decades in jail if its discovered you kill him.
Exactly this. In a fucked up way a rule like that would actually incentivise whistleblowers to become martyrs.
There should be presumption of guilt in this case.
What?? No that’s ridiculous. People do kill themselves sometimes.
Then they’d be interested to hire him all kinds of councilors and security guards so that he doesn’t kill himself.
What? And break into his home so he can’t?
That’ll cost them less money and years of not seeing daylight, so why not.
Because don’t you think that in itself is a form of witness intimidation? Won’t people be hesitant to volunteer to testify during a lengthy trial if it means a security guard literally watching them sleep and shower for months.
I meant not that the witness would be obligated to accept that, but that a company would be interested to offer to pay for various measures to preserve their health, sanity and all that.
Step 1: Short company stocks Step 2: kill witness against the company Step 3: profit.
Just one example of that being a terrible idea
Or, short of that… If you’re whistleblowing on Boeing, you should go to Airbus and Lockheed and tell them, “it’s in your best interest that I stay breathing”.
It’s absolutely not. They don’t want whistleblowers.
Do not underestimate the level of solidarity rich people will display against anyone who challenges them.