When Windows Save Lives: How Bulletproof Glass Stopped a Deadly Shooter

You sit back and do your everyday job, sipping your everyday coffee. Your office is high in the big city, with reflective windows lining the building like a tower of mirrors. Natural light streams through to your desk as you type the last of your notes on your computer, the sun warming your backside. 

Your stomach rumbles as the clock on your laptop hits noon and you get up for your lunch break. On the first floor, the cafeteria is filled with employees sitting alone eating sandwiches or visiting with coworkers. You sit near the wall of windows that preview the busy street, cars driving past without a care. You bite into your favorite sandwich until you notice someone different outside the window. 

A man stands across the street holding a gun. 

People walk past without notice, but something is abnormally different about this man with the gun. You put your sandwich down and narrow your eyes to see the man staring straight at the building, almost looking directly at you. 

Then he raises his gun. 

You barely gasp before you realize his finger on the trigger.

A shot is fired.

In that instant, a dull crack of the glass follows the piercing gunshot.

A female coworker screams and covers her head along with several others who cry in fear. A terrible shatter shakes the building and everyone dives under their tables, sandwiches left half-eaten. You can barely watch the scene as you tuck yourself under the table even if the chances of you still getting shot are highly likely. There is nowhere to hide unless you leave the cafeteria. 

You and your table sit closest to the window and you can be the first victim.

Another shot is fired. 

The pedestrians outside are screaming and running away. They clear the streets to leave the shooter alone and ready to fire again. The windows cover the entire wall facing the street, the shooter doesn’t have a single blind spot. He strategically shot during a time when most workers came to lunch and gathered in the same area. You happened to be one of those workers coming for a quiet lunch. 

You cover your head, your heart pounding in your chest. Another shake of the building as a third shot sounds. 

Your stomach lurches as you feel the panic rise in your chest. You could be shot next. Someone was going to die today and it could be you. 

Yet there is nothing you can do about it. 

A fourth shot. 

You spot your manager hurrying to the back of the room, his eyes wide in fear. He breaks open the fire alarm and pulls the trigger, the room lights up with the screams of the alarm. The flashing lights disorient the room, and your skin goes numb. 

The fire alarm wasn’t going to do anything to the active shooter outside the cafeteria window. 

Two more consecutive shots are fired, and some of the employees in the back are crouching low as they hurry out of the room. You spot a few hidden behind vending machines or pillars. One had dove behind a counter. You barely have the table in front of you, every part of you vulnerable to the shooting outside the building.  

When you look back up at the large windows, they are shrouded in shattered glass. Yet despite the shattering, all the windows are somewhat intact. 

Another shot at the same window yet you don’t see the bullet penetrate the glass. You are too frightened to recognize why the windows didn’t completely fall apart, but something did seem off about the glass. 

You anticipate the next shot only to realize the room has gone silent. You raise your head and see the shooter run away past the remains of the untouched windows. You spot the red and blue sirens just as the shooter has disappeared.

Your focus reverts to the shot windows. 

Five windows are shattered like a majestic spider web, but not a piece of glass has fallen to the floor. Nor was there a clean hole where the bullet had broken through. 

Or any hole in that matter. 

It takes several moments for your coworkers to rise from their chairs. The cafeteria is still intact without anything destroyed or grazed by a bullet. It was as if not a single bullet ever penetrated past the wall of windows. 

You are still trembling regardless of the relief that stands before you. 

The shooter is gone and not a single person was shot. 

People from the streets start looking at the windows hoping to find out what happened. A police officer down the street had recognized the stress of the incident and came and caught the shooter right at the knick of time. He runs in to see if everyone in the cafeteria is safe. Paramedics are also on their way. 

Besides being shaken, you and everyone else in the cafeteria are all untouched. 

This would have been considered a mass shooting had those windows not protected the employees trying to have a decent lunch. Although this story is fictional, this shooter could have been anyone in a real shooting. 

You discover that this shooter was a former employee fired just a week before. According to gun violence experts, the most common shooters for workplace shootings are current or past employees who had issues with the company. Regardless of the workplace environment, these former or current employees would have likely had some mental health challenges. 

One fatal workplace mass shooting happened in the year 2024, at a grocery store in Atlanta, Georgia. Although that’s only one example from 2024, it doesn’t guarantee that your office building will be the exception next year. According to Vox’s article Why The Workplace is a Common Site for Mass Shootings, they mentioned how mass shootings are increasing along with workplace violence. The increase of shootings won’t be ceasing anytime soon and your office building may be next. 

“The reason why the bullet didn’t go through was because of the bulletproof glass,” the police officer tells you after the event. 

Although the gun had shattered the glass itself, the bulletproof window had stopped the bullet from reaching inside the cafeteria. You and your coworkers go and take a closer look outside where you see a squished bullet pelted deep into the glass without fully penetrating the window. Inside the cafeteria, the wall of windows is smooth without any spalling or break-through. 

Who knew the importance of installing bulletproof glass? You and everyone else in that cafeteria would have been shot and killed had those windows not existed. A wall full of windows yet everyone was safe. 

This is a risk that most don’t consider. Windows provide natural light and a pleasant architectural look. It’s common for many large office buildings to be a tower of reflective windows reaching towards the sky. The building you were in was one of those buildings full of windows yet with its bulletproof glass, you were still protected. 

Nobody knew this shooting was going to happen. Nobody suspected that a coworker was frustrated and would pull a gun on them. Nobody was prepared for what happened during that shooting except for one thing. 

Your company was prepared with bulletproof glass and saved your life.