Going postal

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This article is about the violent social phenomenon. For the Discworld novel, see Going Postal.
Memorial of the 1986 post office incident in Edmond, Oklahoma.
Memorial of the 1986 post office incident in Edmond, Oklahoma.

Going postal is an American English slang term, used as a verb meaning to suddenly become extremely and uncontrollably angry, possibly to the point of violence. The term derives from a series of incidents from 1986 onward in which United States Postal Service (USPS) workers shot and killed managers, fellow workers, and members of the police or general public. Between 1986 and 1997, more than 40 people were killed in at least 20 incidents of workplace rage. Following this series of events, the idiom entered common parlance and has been applied to murders committed by employees in acts of workplace rage, irrespective of the employer; and generally to describe fits of rage, though not necessarily at the level of murder, in or outside the workplace.

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[edit] Earliest citation

This term first appeared in print on December 17, 1993 in the St. Petersburg Times

"The symposium was sponsored by the U.S. Postal Service, which has seen so many outbursts that in some circles excessive stress is known as "going postal." Thirty-five people have been killed in 11 post office shootings since 1983."

[edit] Significant incidents

Patrick Sherrill - first to "go postal"
Patrick Sherrill - first to "go postal"

[edit] Edmond, Oklahoma in 1986

On August 20, 1986, 14 employees were shot dead and six wounded at the Edmond, Oklahoma, post office by a postman, Patrick Sherrill, who then committed suicide with a shot to the forehead.

[edit] Ridgewood, New Jersey in 1991

In October, 1991, Joseph Harris shot and killed four people, including his old boss and two other USPS employees a year after being fired. [1]

[edit] Royal Oak, Michigan in 1991

On November 14, 1991 in Royal Oak, Michigan, Thomas McIlvane killed five people, including himself, with a Ruger 10/22 rifle in Royal Oak's post office, after being fired from the Postal Service for alleged time-card fraud.

[edit] Double Event in 1993

Two shootings took place on the same day, May 6, 1993, a few hours apart. In Dearborn, Michigan, Larry Jasion wounded three and killed two (including himself). In Dana Point, California, Mark Richard Hilburn killed his mother, then shot two postal workers dead.

[edit] Montclair, New Jersey in 1995

Christopher Green was sentenced to two life prison terms, plus 25 years, for murdering four men and wounding a fifth during a $5,100 robbery at a tiny neighborhood post office in Montclair, New Jersey, on March 21.

Image:Jennifersanmarco.jpg
Jennifer San Marco

[edit] Goleta, California, in 2006

Another incident [2] occurred on the evening of January 30, 2006, at a large postal processing facility in Goleta, near Santa Barbara, California. Police said that Jennifer San Marco, a former postal employee, killed six postal employees, including one critically wounded who later died, before committing suicide with a handgun.

Police later also identified a seventh victim; Beverly Graham, 54, was found dead in a condominium complex in Goleta where San Marco once lived. [3]

The other dead included Charlotte Colton, 44; Ze Fairchild, 37, and Maleka Higgins, 28, both of Santa Barbara; Nicola Grant, 42, and Guadalupe Swartz, 52, both of Lompoc; and Dexter Shannon, 57, of Oxnard.

According to media reports, the Postal Service had forced San Marco to retire in 2003 because of her worsening mental problems. Her choice of victims also may have been racially motivated; San Marco had a previous history of racial prejudice, and tried to obtain a business license for a newspaper of her own ideas, called Racial Times, in New Mexico.

This incident is believed to be the deadliest workplace shooting ever carried out in the United States by a woman. [4][5]

[edit] Analysis

Researchers have found that the homicide rates per 100,000 workers at postal facilities were lower than at other workplaces. In major industries, the highest rate of 2.1 homicides per 100,000 workers was in retail. The next highest rate of 1.66 was in public administration, which includes police officers. The homicide rate for postal workers was 0.26 per 100,000. The most dangerous occupation: taxi driving, with a homicide rate of 31.54 per 100,000 workers.[citation needed]

(However, not all murders on the job are directly comparable to "going postal". Taxi drivers, for example, are much more likely to be murdered by passengers than by their peers.)[citation needed]

[edit] Satirical references

  • In the fifth season episode of The Simpsons "Homer Loves Flanders", Flanders has a fantasy scene where he opens fire from a tower, like Charles Whitman. When he shoots near a mail man, the man responds by pulling an assault rifle out of his work bag and firing back.
  • In an episode of Dexter's Lab, there was a one-time villain called "The disgruntled postman" who was foiled by Major Glory before he could affix a stamp to a bomb which he would send to the White House to blow up.
  • In the episode of Rocko's Modern Life called "Commute Sentence", A postal worker in a subway car claims he is becoming "disgruntled", causing everyone to flee in terror. This turns out to be a ruse just so he had swinging room.
  • In the film Jumanji, the character of Van Pelt, a sadistic 19th century safari hunter played by Jonathan Hyde, goes to a gun store to buy ammunition for his old hunting rifle, but winds up with a more modern automatic rifle. To get used to this new firearm, he takes aim at a person on the street. The owner of the gun shop worriedly asks, "You're not a postal worker, are you?" Van Pelt simply looks at him, puzzled.
  • In the film The Naked Gun 33⅓: The Final Insult, at the beginning (when there is a satire of The Untouchables), Frank hears a voice (off-camera) that shouts '"Oh, my God! Look! It's disgruntled postal workers.". Then, he looks at the Entrance of the Train Station and sees many workers going postal, shooting blind with machine guns and submachine guns.
  • In an episode of Whose Line is it Anyway?, during a skit revolving around a post office, Colin Mochrie asks Wayne Brady what training he has to become a postal worker. Brady cocks an imaginary gun and says "I'm an expert marksman".
  • In the computer game Duke Nukem 3D, the 6th level of Episode 4: The Birth is called "Going Postal."
  • In pilot episode the comedy TV show MAD TV the opening joke shows two Executives travel all over L.A. to get cast members for MAD TV, one of them played by Phil LaMarr is a mailman who is just walking out of a building with a submachine gun and screaming at people around him.
  • The Discworld novel Going Postal revolves around the reopening of the postal service in the fictional city of Ankh-Morpork where employment really can do funny things to your head as evidenced by several, if not all, employees.
  • In a Ctrl+Alt+Del comic, a worker at the "United Piñata Postal Service" snaps and kills its fellow workers with a baseball bat.
  • In the video game True Crime: Streets of L.A., the dispatcher says that there is a disgruntled postal worker holding a person hostage.
  • The computer game Postal takes its name from the expression "going postal", even resulting in a lawsuit from the United States Postal Service.
  • In the TV series Seinfeld, one episode features postman Newman (played by Wayne Knight) explaining why postal workers tend to murder their peers. He claims that this is because the mail never stops, piling up day after day, and becomes increasingly agitated as he explains the phenomenon.
  • In the film Jingle All the Way the mail man character threatens to bomb some officers. He proves his insanity by claiming to work for the Postal Service, "And I work for the Post Office so you know I ain't stable!"
  • In the computer game Chaos Overlords, one of the gangs for hire is disgruntled postal workers.
  • In an episode of Deadliest Catch, when a crew member's coat is ripped by a tote on deck, the tote is tossed overboard and riddled with a full clip of bullets at the hand the crew member. The narrator refers to this decision as "going postal".

[edit] References

  1. ^ "1991 : A former postal worker commits mass murder".
  2. ^ "Ex-Employee Kills 6 Others and Herself at California Postal Plant", 2006-02-01.
  3. ^ "Death Toll in Calif. Postal Shooting Rises: Calif. Sheriff's Deputies Say Woman Accused in Post Office Killings May Have Also Shot Her Former Neighbor".
  4. ^ "Seven dead in California postal shooting", 2006-01-31.
  5. ^ "US ex-postal employee kills six", 2006-01-31.
  1. Bob Dart, "'Going postal' is a bad rap for mail carriers, study finds", Austin American-Statesman, September 2, 2000

[edit] Bibliography

  • Going Postal: Rage, Murder, and Rebellion: From Reagan's Workplaces to Clinton's Columbine and Beyond is the title of a book by Mark Ames, which examines the rise of office and school shootings in the wake of the Reagan Revolution, and compares the shootings to slave rebellions. (ISBN 1-932360-82-4)
  • Going Postal is also the title of a book by Don Lasseter, which examines the issue of workplace shootings inside the USPS (ISBN 0-7860-0439-8).
  • Lone Wolf, by Pan Pantziarka is a comprehensive study of the Spree killer phenomenon, and looks in detail at a number of cases in the US, UK and Australia. (ISBN 0-7535-0437-5).

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

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