This happened a few years ago, when I was fresh out of my degree, during my first “real” job.
I worked with a company that created apps for clients. I was their client, and we contracted the company to build an app for the company I worked for. I was close with the PM and developers.
One day I was told by the COO that they were closing their development consultancy, meaning I had to find another development team to continue building and maintaining my app. Sucks, but no problem, I'll start looking. So, I call around for other development teams, and when asked why we weren't continuing with the development consultancy, I say that the old company is closing their development shop.
Weeks go by and the COO asks if I can come to the company offices for a meeting. Going to their offices was common but never with the COO. I show up, and he brings me to a new room for the meeting that I have never been in. He ushers me in and I sit at the back end of the table (it was a small room). COO sits on the other side of the table. There is a table and the COO now between me and the door.
COO starts yelling at me. Like, screaming, telling me that I am ruining his company, I am taking food out of the mouths of the children who's parents work there. He then threatens me with legal action as well as dropping hints of physical harm. Things like, “I would be so upset if I was a parent that I might be taking it out on you”, that sort of thing.
By nature I am a bit of a shit head, so my first reaction to this was telling the COO he was welcomed to hire a lawyer. But the more I was screamed at the more I broke down until I told the COO that he could tell me what I could say about the company. That wasn't good enough for the COO, who kept screaming.
During the middle of his triad, he had to step out of the meeting room. I broke down in tears, and I rushed the door and found out that he locked me inside the room. So I start pounding on the door. Then I called my boss, bawling, who told me to call 911. Right before I did that, a developer came and let me out. I ran out and started immediately going home. While heading home the COO had emailed me saying that he was disappointed that I left in the middle of a meeting and the least I could have done was dropped by his office to say goodbye.
The next day I went to my boss, who is a mental health professional, and told him what happened. He did things like, “It's obvious you're still upset” (I was shaking), and “Anger isn't a bad emotion.” But in the end, he forced me to keep working with the COO. So, even from a mental health professional, I guess my feelings about being locked in a room against my will and being threatened didn't matter much.
In the end, I hired the developer that let me out of the room to work on the app for my company directly. He told me that the COO was vicious, and had lost numerous employees to his outbursts, including the PM that was assigned to me previously, and he wanted out desperately. As far as I was aware, I was the first person he locked in a room, and the first woman he screamed at. I would bring this experience to all of my other positions since then (over a decade ago), trying to create office spaces that were more friendly towards women in tech.
The company did close within a few months after this incident.