threats. There were similar occurrences in Okla-
homa and Arkansas. In May, 1987, an Oklahoma City
mail carrier threatened several people, mentioned
the Sherrill massacre, and was arrested by federal
agents for possession of three mortar grenades. In
December, 1988, mail handler Warren Murphy shot
three fellow workers with bird shot in New Orleans,
then held a woman hostage for thirteen hours. None
of the victims sustained life-threatening wounds.
Murphy had recently been promoted.
In August, 1989, postal worker John Merlin Tay-
lor shot his wife to death, then drove to work in
Escondido, California, where he killed two cowork-
ers and wounded another, then shot himself in the
head. Taylor had worked for the post office for
twenty-seven years and had won work awards. He
had talked about the Sherrill shootings two days ear-
lier. Two weeks later, another twenty-seven-year vet-
eran postal worker from Escondido hanged himself
in his garage; after amassing twenty-five hundred
hours of sick leave, he had been reprimanded for
taking a sick day just before he left on vacation. The
USPS said that the rate of violence within the postal
service was no greater than it was in other profes-
sions. From 1958 to 1989, there were 355 instances
of assaults on supervisors and 183 instances of su-
pervisors assaulting employees in post offices across
the country.War of Words Vincent Sombrotto, president of the
National Association of Letter Carriers, told report-
ers that Patrick Sherrill had no doubt been pushed
over the brink by the management style of his superi-
ors, which had been irresponsible and coercive.
Beryl Jones, president of the Oklahoma City Postal
Workers Union, agreed, saying there was intimida-
tion and pressure and Sherrill just snapped. The
USPS’s communication administrator said Sherrill
had not been close to being fired but was only given
an elementary counseling session. The president of
the National Association of Postal Supervisors said
Sombrotto’s comments blamed postal supervisors
for the actions of a disturbed individual. Letter carri-
ers around the country wrote to newspapers, agree-
ing with Sombrotto that employees were routinely
harassed by supervisors. Arguments of this sort
erupted with each post office shooting.Impact In 1987, lawsuits totaling $166 million were
filed against the Edmond post office, the Air Force,
the Army, the City of Edmond, and the Edmond Po-
lice Department, by families of Patrick Sherrill’s vic-
tims. Most of these lawsuits were dismissed by 1989.
In 1988, a General Accounting Office investigation
found that the job histories of 63 percent of those
hired by the USPS were not checked, a violation of
government rules. The USPS replied that, under
government rules, it was almost impossible not to
hire veterans such as Patrick Sherrill for civil service
jobs regardless of their work history. Spree killings of
all sorts continued in the United States into the
1990’s.The Eighties in America Post office shootings 775
This statue was erected in 1989 to commemorate the fourteen vic-
tims of Patrick Sherrill’s August, 1986, post office shooting spree
in Edmond, Oklahoma.(AP/Wide World Photos)