Going postal is an American English slang phrase referring to becoming extremely and uncontrollably angry, often to the point of violence, and usually in a workplace environment. The expression derives from a series of incidents from 1986 onward in which United States Postal Service (USPS) workers shot and killed managers, fellow workers, police officers and members of the general public in acts of mass murder. Between 1970 and 1997, more than 40 people were killed by then-current or former employees in at least 20 incidents of workplace rage. Between 1986 and 2011, workplace shootings happened roughly twice per year, with an average of 1.18 people killed per year.
Workplace violence, violence in the workplace, or occupational violence refers to violence, usually in the form of physical abuse or threat, that creates a risk to the health and safety of an employee or multiple employees. The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health defines worker on worker, personal relationship, customer/client, and criminal intent all as categories of violence in the workplace. These four categories are further broken down into three levels: Level one displays early warning signs of violence, Level two is slightly more violent, and level three is significantly violent. Many workplaces have initiated programs and protocols to protect their workers as the Occupational Health Act of 1970 states that employers must provide an environment in which employees are free of harm or harmful conditions.
Orlando Regional Medical Center (ORMC) is an 808-bed tertiary hospital in downtown Orlando, Florida designed by HKS, Inc. (architect) and Walter P Moore. It is the flagship of the Orlando Health system.
The Lockheed Martin shooting occurred on July 8, 2003, at a plant in Meridian, Mississippi. The gunman, Douglas Williams, an assembly line worker at the plant, shot 14 of his co-workers with a shotgun, killing six of them, before committing suicide. After the shooting, information surfaced depicting Williams' history of making threats and racist comments directed at African-American coworkers. Five of the six killed in the incident were black.
The Hartford Distributors shooting was a mass shooting that occurred on August 3, 2010, in Manchester, Connecticut, United States. The location of the crime was a warehouse owned by Hartford Distributors, a beer distribution company. The gunman, former employee Omar Sheriff Thornton shot and killed eight male coworkers before turning a gun on himself.
A mass shooting is a violent crime in which one or more attackers use a firearm to kill or injure multiple individuals in rapid succession. There is no widely accepted specific definition, and different organizations tracking such incidents use different criteria. Mass shootings are generally characterized by the targeting of victims in a non-combat setting, and thus the term generally excludes gang violence, shootouts and warfare. Mass shootings may be done for personal or psychological reasons, such as by individuals who are deeply disgruntled, seeking notoriety, or are intensely angry at a perceived grievance; though they have also been used as a terrorist tactic, such as when members of an ethnic or religious minority are targeted. The perpetrator of an ongoing mass shooting may be referred to as an active shooter.
In the early hours on the morning of June 8, 2017, employees at a Weis Markets supermarket in Eaton Township, Pennsylvania, United States, were stocking and closing the store for the night. Shortly before 1:00 a.m., 24-year-old Randy Stair barricaded the exits of the store and proceeded to shoot and kill three of his co-workers before fatally shooting himself.
On June 30, 2017, at around 2:45 p.m. EDT, a doctor opened fire at the Bronx-Lebanon Hospital Center in the Bronx, New York City, United States, killing a doctor on the 17th floor and wounding six people on the 16th floor with an AR-15-type semi-automatic rifle. The shooter was later identified as 45-year-old Nigerian-born Dr. Henry Michael Bello, a family physician formerly employed by the hospital.
On May 31, 2019, a mass shooting occurred at a municipal building in the Princess Anne area of Virginia Beach, Virginia. The gunman, DeWayne Craddock, who was a disgruntled city employee, fatally shot 12 people and wounded four others before he was killed by responding police officers. It is the second-deadliest workplace shooting in U.S. history after the 1986 Edmond post office shooting and the deadliest mass shooting in Virginia since the 2007 Virginia Tech shooting.
On November 22, 2022, Andre Marcus Bing killed six co-workers and injured four others before taking his own life, in retaliation for perceived workplace harassment at the Walmart Supercenter where he worked as a night-supervisor in Chesapeake, Virginia, United States. Bing's suicide note cited concern he was being "led by Satan" and asking forgiveness – while also mentioning cancer treatments and loneliness.
The Fresno meat plant shooting was a mass shooting that occurred on the morning of November 6, 2012, at the Valley Protein meat processing plant in central Fresno, California. Lawrence Nathaniel Jones, a 42-year-old employee, shot four of his coworkers with a stolen handgun, killing two. He then reloaded his weapon as he walked outside, where he shot himself in the head. He was pronounced dead at the hospital three hours later.
