Going postal
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- This article is about the violent social phenomenon. For the Discworld novel, see Going Postal.
Image:1986-post-office-killing-spree-statue.jpg Going postal is an American English slang term, used as a verb meaning to become extremely 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 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
[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
As told by "Today in Rotten History," on October 10, 1991, "Disgruntled postal worker Joseph Harris kills four people... First he brings an Uzi, pipe bomb, and a samurai sword to his supervisor's home, where he kills her and her fiance. Then Harris visits the post office, shooting two coworkers. When he finally surrenders to police, the gunman is wearing a ninja costume and a gas mask."
[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] 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.
[edit] Goleta, California, in 2006
Another incident <ref> </ref> 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. <ref> </ref>
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 Racist Times, in New Mexico.
This incident is believed to be the deadliest workplace shooting ever carried out in the United States by a woman. <ref> </ref><ref> </ref>
[edit] Analysis
Homicide statistics show that Postal Service employees are no more likely to "go postal" than are other American workers[citation needed]. Researchers 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 occupations: taxi driving, with a homicide rate of 31.54 per 100,000 workers.
(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.)
[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 castmembers 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 people around him.
- The Discworld novel Going Postal revolves around the reopening of the postal service in the fictional city of Ankh-Morpork.
- 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 it's name from the expression "going postal", even resulting in a lawsuit from the United States Postal Service.
[edit] References
- 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
- Copycat Effect- review of Coleman's book on tendency of publicity about mass deaths to provoke more with section on postal shootings
- USPS's campaign against the use of this phrase. (See articles with "Going Postal" in the title)
- 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
- Postal 2: Share the Pain A video game based on "going postal".
