The Expression Going Postal Came About After A Postal Worker Went On A Killing Spree
When you hear the phrase “going postal,” you might think it’s just a quirky expression that refers to someone losing their cool.
However, this phrase has a dark history that is tied to workplace violence in postal facilities in the United States during the late 20th century. In 1991, “going postal” became a common saying after a U.S. postal worker murdered his coworkers.
In 1990, Joseph M. Harris was just your average 34-year-old postal worker in Ridgewood, New Jersey. Neighbors and coworkers described Harris as “quiet, tense, and odd.” Apparently, he also had a bad temper.
According to one former coworker, Harris would often walk around karate chopping the air during work hours. He struggled with taking directions and respecting authority, consistently butting heads with his supervisor, Carol Ott.
Eventually, Ott filed a report with the Ridgewood police department, claiming that Harris harassed her at work. Harris was ordered to take a fitness of duty exam, but he refused. Ultimately, he was fired.
Before Harris left, other postal workers recalled him telling Ott that he would seek revenge on her. On October 10, 1991, just after midnight, he attacked Ott at her apartment.
He made preparations by dressing in a bulletproof vest, black military fatigues, a black ninja-style hood, and combat boots.
He also armed himself with a nine-millimeter Uzi machine gun, a .22 caliber handgun with a silencer, a Samurai sword, three hand grenades, and some homemade bombs.
Then, he wrote a two-page letter about how the U.S. Postal Service treated him unfairly and vowed to take vengeance on them. Finally, he booby-trapped his door and left home for Ott’s apartment.
PictureSyndicate – stock.adobe.com – illustrative purposes only
Harris broke into her apartment, swung his sword at her, and cut a deep gash into her left shoulder. She ended up dying from the wound.
Afterward, Harris went downstairs and fatally shot Cornelius Kasten Junior, Ott’s boyfriend, behind the ear. At two in the morning, he snuck into the back entrance of the Ridgewood post office and shot and killed two mail handlers, Joseph Vander Paauw and Donald McNaught.
He also shot at a truck driver who noticed that he was behaving suspiciously. The truck driver managed to escape unharmed and phoned the police.
Police arrived at the scene quickly, but they were forced to retreat when Harris threw a homemade bomb at them. After half an hour of negotiations, Harris surrendered.
Officers were able to tie him to a previous case where he assaulted the wife and daughters of an investor who lost his money before shooting the investor in his home.
In 1992, Harris was sentenced to death row and died of natural causes in prison in 1996. His murder spree is just one of several postal-related killings that have happened in the U.S. since the 1970s.
Unfortunately, Americans are all too familiar with mass shootings by now, having witnessed so many tragedies either in person or on the news.
Most recently, a previous FedEx employee named Brandon Scott Hole committed a mass shooting at the FedEx Ground facility in Indianapolis, Indiana. He killed nine people and injured seven before taking his own life.
So, while “going postal” may seem like a harmless phrase, its backstory is truly unsettling.
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