People really need to stand up for themselves
I encountered a psychopathic IT development manager at a previous job. Out of the blue, he came barging in to my office shouting at me at the top of his voice and was obviously extremely angry. Very intimidating.
My sin? I had forwarded the project plan I was working on to the rest of the team for their comments so that I could get agreement from them before presenting the plan to him. An action which was mandated by our internal standards. For some reason this sent him into an incandescent rage.
Once he had left and I had managed to calm my shaking hands, I went straight to the managing director's office, described to him what had happened and stated plainly that I wasn't prepared to tolerate such an attack again and that I would leave if they didn't do something about it. The manager left the office within the hour, fired on the spot.
The point of the tale being that if you don't do something about abusive colleagues right there and then, you are tacitly accepting their behaviour and allowing it to continue.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
