Former U.S. postal worker Joseph Harris shot two former co-workers to death at the post office in Ridgewood, New Jersey on this day in 1991. The night before, Harris had killed his former supervisor, Carol Ott, with a samurai sword, and shot her fiance. Harris was initially armed with an Uzi, grenades, and "samurai sword" and garbed in a ninja outfit and gas mask. After a four-hour standoff with police at the post office, Harris was eventually arrested. His violent outburst was one of many such attacks by postal workers that resulted in the addition of the phrase “going postal” to the American lexicon.
"On November 14th of that same year, after being fired, Thomas Mcilvane killed 4 people and then himself at a Royal Oak, Michigan post office. In a terrible coincidence, on May 6th 1993, two separate shootings took place. The first one was at a post office in Dearborn, Michigan, where Lawrence Jasion killed one person and wounded three before killing himself. Within a few hours of that, in Dana Point, California, Mark Richard Hilbun killed his mother, and then shot two postal workers." Source
Between the years of 1983 to 1993, there were 11 murderous rampages in U.S. post offices. The worst of these took place on August 20, 1986, in Edmond, Oklahoma. Pat Sherrill, who was about to be fired, killed 14 mail workers, wounded another five, and then turned the gun on himself. I've noticed that some who have gone postal are former military.
The first case of Post Office violence that I could find was in Australia in 1926 where fired postal worker James Hannivan shot and wounded two employees at Adelaide General Post Office, before committing suicide by shooting himself in the head.
The most recent case of this type of violence happened at a Fedex facility in Indianapolis on April 15 2021 where a gunman killed nine of his former coworkers.
2,000,000 US workers per year report workplace violence.
Most cases of workplace violence are non-fatal. From 1993 to 1999, an average of about 1.7 million people reported occupational violence. About 75% of these cases are considered simple assault, while 19% of cases are considered aggravated assault.
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