You don’t hear that someone has “gone postal” much anymore. Yet decades ago, it was a hot catchphrase until the early 1990s. Here’s what happened.
Odd, Nosy, and “Sick in the Head”
Patrick Henry Sherrill, a 44-year-old letter carrier in Edmond, Oklahoma, was a well-known creep.
A local peeking tom who falsely claimed to have served in Vietnam, Sherrill was “universally unliked” by neighbors.
One neighbor’s son had to chase him out of the garage with an axe when he was discovered lurking.
Reprimanded and Angry
On August 20, 1986, Sherrill was reprimanded by a supervisor for poor performance. He had previously received unfavorable performance ratings and was afraid of losing his job.
The day before, he called union officials twice to demand that he be moved to the Oklahoma City post office.
“Shot Point Blank”
On August 20, Sherrill burst into the post office, pulled out three pistols from a mail pouch, and shot fellow employees.
Many employees, at first, thought the shots were firecrackers. One witness, Vince Furlong, said: “My best friend was shot point blank.”
Aftermath: “A Lot of Blood”
Fourteen postal workers were dead, including a grandson of Knute Rockne, the famed football coach at the University of Notre Dame. Seven were injured, including two who survived by playing dead.
”There was a lot of blood, a lot of bodies,” said Police Lieut. Mike Woolridge of the Edmond Police Department. ”With 14 people, you’re going to have a lot of blood.”
New Catchphrase: “Gone Postal”
“Going postal” entered the lexicon to mean becoming extremely and uncontrollably angry, often to the point of violence, particularly in a workplace.
Use of the phrase waned after the 1990s, replaced by terms like “workplace violence” or “active shooter.”
Some Changes, Some Not
The postal service admitted that it “dropped the ball” in assisting victims’ families, shaping new policies for post-crisis management.
Built five years previously, the Edmond post office was not demolished. A sculpture memorial stands in front.
