Going postal - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

American English

American English is a set of dialects of the English language used mostly in the United States. Approximately two-thirds of the world's native speakers of English live in the United States....

slang

Slang

Slang is the use of informal words and expressions that are not considered standard in the speaker's language or dialect but are considered more acceptable when used socially. Slang is often to be found in areas of the lexicon that refer to things considered taboo...

, means becoming extremely and uncontrollably angry, often to the point of violence, and usually in a workplace environment.

The expression derives from a series of incidents from 1983 onward in which United States Postal Service

United States Postal Service

The United States Postal Service is an independent agency of the United States government responsible for providing postal service in the United States...

(USPS) workers shot and killed managers, fellow workers, and members of the police or general public in acts of mass murder

Mass murder

Mass murder is the act of murdering a large number of people , typically at the same time or over a relatively short period of time. According to the FBI, mass murder is defined as four or more murders occurring during a particular event with no cooling-off period between the murders...

. Between 1986 and 1997, more than forty people were gunned down by spree killer

Spree killer

A spree killer is someone who embarks on a murderous assault on two or more victims in a short time in multiple locations. The U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics defines a spree killing as "killings at two or more locations with almost no time break between murders."-Definition:According to the...

s in at least twenty incidents of workplace rage.

Origin

The earliest citation is December 17, 1993 in the St. Petersburg Times
St. Petersburg Times
The St. Petersburg Times is a United States newspaper. It is one of two major publications serving the Tampa Bay Area, the other being The Tampa Tribune, which the Times tops in both circulation and readership. Based in St...

:
December 31, 1993 in Los Angeles Times:

Edmond, Oklahoma in 1986

On August 20, 1986, 14 employees were shot and killed and six wounded at the Edmond, Oklahoma

Edmond, Oklahoma

Edmond is a city in Oklahoma County, Oklahoma, United States, and a part of the Oklahoma City metropolitan area in the central part of the state. As of the 2010 census, the population was 81,405, making it the sixth largest city in the state of Oklahoma....

, post office by Patrick Sherrill

Patrick Sherrill

Patrick Henry Sherrill was a United States Postal Service employee who, on August 20, 1986, in Edmond, Oklahoma, killed 14 employees with two .45 caliber pistols at his work place before turning one of the guns on himself and committing suicide...

, a postman who then committed suicide

Suicide

Suicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. Suicide is often committed out of despair or attributed to some underlying mental disorder, such as depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, alcoholism, or drug abuse...

with a shot to the forehead.

Ridgewood, New Jersey in 1991

A former United States postal worker, Joseph M. Harris, killed his former supervisor with a sword, and shot her boyfriend at their home. The following morning, on October 10, 1991, Harris shot and killed two employees at the Ridgewood, New Jersey Post Office.

Royal Oak, Michigan in 1991

On November 14, 1991 in Royal Oak, Michigan

Royal Oak, Michigan

Royal Oak is a city in Oakland County of the U.S. state of Michigan. It is a suburb of Detroit. As of the 2010 census, the city had a total population of 57,236. It should not be confused with Royal Oak Charter Township, a separate community located nearby....

, Thomas McIlvane killed five people, including himself, with a Ruger 10/22

Ruger 10/22

The Ruger 10/22 is a semi-automatic rimfire rifle chambered in .22 Long Rifle. It has a removable 10-round rotary magazine which allows the magazine to fit flush with the bottom of the stock. Higher capacity magazines are also available...

rifle in Royal Oak's post office, after being fired from the Postal Service for "insubordination." He had been previously suspended for getting into altercations with postal customers on his route.

Double event in 1993

Two shootings took place on the same day, May 6, 1993, a few hours apart. At a post office in Dearborn, Michigan

Dearborn, Michigan

-Economy:Ford Motor Company has its world headquarters in Dearborn. In addition its Dearborn campus contains many research, testing, finance and some production facilities. Ford Land controls the numerous properties owned by Ford including sales and leasing to unrelated businesses such as the...

, Lawrence Jasion

Lawrence Jasion

Lawrence Jasion was a disgruntled 27-year veteran who, on May 6, 1993, entered the garage area of the Dearborn, Michigan post office and produced a .38 revolver. He proceeded to kill mechanic Gary Montes and wound two other coworkers. Before anyone could react, Jasion took his own life.-See...

wounded three and killed two (including himself). In Dana Point, California

Dana Point, California

-Climate:Dana Point enjoys a mild climate where temperatures tend to average around the 60's. The warmest month of the year is August with an average temperature of 79 degrees Fahrenheit. The coldest month is December with an average minimum temperature of 44 degrees Fahrenheit.-2010:The 2010...

, Mark Richard Hilbun killed his mother, then shot two postal workers dead.

As a result of these two shootings, in 1993 the Postal Service created 85 Workplace Environment Analysts for domicile at its 85 postal districts. These new positions were created to help with violence prevention and workplace improvement. In February 2009, the Postal Service unilaterally eliminated these positions as part of its downsizing efforts.

Goleta, California, in 2006

Jennifer San Marco

Jennifer San Marco was a former US Postal Service employee and mass murderer who killed seven people in Goleta, California.- San Marco's background :...

, a former postal employee, killed six postal employees before committing suicide with a handgun

Handgun

A handgun is a firearm designed to be held and operated by one hand. This characteristic differentiates handguns as a general class of firearms from long guns such as rifles and shotguns ....

, on the evening of January 30, 2006, at a large postal processing facility in Goleta, California

Goleta, California

Goleta is a city in southern Santa Barbara County, California, USA. It was incorporated as a city in 2002, after a long period as the largest unincorporated, populated area in the county. As of the 2000 census, the Census-designated place had a total population of 55,204, however, a significant...

.

Police later also identified a seventh victim dead in a condominium complex in Goleta, California where San Marco once lived.

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 may have also 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 The Racist Press, in New Mexico

New Mexico

New Mexico is a state located in the southwest and western regions of the United States. New Mexico is also usually considered one of the Mountain States. With a population density of 16 per square mile, New Mexico is the sixth-most sparsely inhabited U.S...

.

This incident is believed to be the deadliest workplace shooting ever carried out in the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

by a woman.

Baker City, Oregon, in 2006

Grant Gallaher, a letter carrier in Baker City, Oregon, pleaded guilty to the April 4, 2006 murder of his supervisor. He reportedly brought his .357 Magnum revolver to the city post office with the intention of killing his postmaster. Arriving at the parking lot, he reportedly ran over his supervisor several times. Subsequently he went into the post office looking for his postmaster. Not finding the postmaster, he went back out to the parking lot and shot his supervisor several times at close range, ostensibly to make sure she was dead. He then reportedly fired several more bullets into the supervisor's car.

Grant Gallaher reportedly was on a new route for three weeks and had felt pressured by a week-long work-time study and an extra twenty minutes added to his new route. On the day of his rampage, he reportedly was ahead of schedule on his route and his supervisor brought him more mail to deliver. He allegedly decided to take the matter up with his postmaster on his cell phone and then went home to get his .357 Magnum revolver to exact his revenge. The work climate had reportedly improved from what it was in 1998, the year a union steward, age fifty-three, at the Baker City post office committed suicide.

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.

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. Working in retail means one is exposed to store robberies. In a 1993 joint hearing of the United States Congress in its review of violence in the U.S. Postal Service, NIOSH

National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health

The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health is the United States’ federal agency responsible for conducting research and making recommendations for the prevention of work-related injury and illness. NIOSH is part of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention within the U.S...

estimates were cited as part of the record for the 1980s where it is noted that during this timeframe 13% of the employee-directed homicides occurred at postal facilities by current or former employees, where less than 0.75% of the total full-time civilian labor force was employed.

External links

Postal Work Unfairly Maligned, Study Says, September 1, 2000.
Aug. 20, 1986: Just an ordinary day, August 19, 2006
Copycat Effect- review of Coleman's book on tendency of publicity about mass deaths to provoke more with section on postal shootings
Gun advocate website listing 1986-1997 incidents
2000 Report of the United States Postal Service Commission on a Safe and Secure Workplace (Report that called "going postal" 'a myth')
Atlanta Journal-Constitution about the report's release
Open Letter to the United States Congress outlining the critical need for reform of the authoritarian postal culture via Congressional intervention and legislation. (Musacco, 2009). (Chapter 11 of book Beyond Going Postal Note: In chapter 4: fallacies, omissions, and inaccurate conclusions in the 2000 Report of the United States Service Commission on a Safe and Secure Workplace were examined, especially the conclusion that "going postal was a myth, a bad rap".

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