In recent years, the term "
going postal" has come to mean going into your place of work and killing your
co-workers. It doesn't matter what
line of work it's in, the names the same. People don't "go
clerical", or "go
educational" they "go
postal".
Its even become a
joke of sorts.
Dennis Leary has joked about what he'd do to prevent such things if he was a supervisor at the
Post Office. But real
people died. The following murders are to
blame for this
reputation for
violence that the
postal workers of
America have been painted with.
Curtis Collins in
1980,
Perry Smith in
1983, and
Thomas McIlvane in
1993, all tried to solve their
problems by shooting their
supervisor.
In
1991,
Joseph Harris killed his supervisor in her home, then went to
work and
shot his co-workers.
In
1986,
Patrick Sherrell killed fourteen and injured seven in response to a terrible
performance review.
In
1986 Dominic Lupoli and
Warren Murphy each went
berserk when they were
rejected by a female co-worker.
Mark Richard did the same in
1993.
No one knows why
John Taylor did what he did. He seemed
happily married,
well liked, and was an
excellent employee, but in
1989 he
shot his wife and then went to work and killed two of his friends and then himself. The only
explanation authorities found was a
note from Taylor saying he did "what he had to do."
In
May 1993, there were two post office killings in one day.
Larry Jasion, angry that he was passed over for
promotion opened fire at a Post Office in
Michigan. Four hours later, in
California,
Mark Richard returned to a Post Office that he had been fired from for
stalking a female co-worker and started shooting.