WEBVTT - Why Postal Employees Go Postal 0:00:01.120 --> 0:00:03.400 Welcome to Stuff you should Know, a production of My 0:00:03.600 --> 0:00:13.000 Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. 0:00:13.520 --> 0:00:16.640 Oh Boys, can be a long year. I'm Josh, there's Chuck, 0:00:17.239 --> 0:00:21.200 there's Jerry over there, and this is stuff you should know. 0:00:24.640 --> 0:00:26.479 May be long year, that the year is always the 0:00:26.480 --> 0:00:29.240 same length. I almost forgot the word podcast in the intro. 0:00:29.680 --> 0:00:32.000 That's an indicator it's gonna be a long year. We're 0:00:32.040 --> 0:00:34.960 only going to do subjectively. We're only going to do 0:00:35.000 --> 0:00:39.319 this a hundred more times. Yeah, but we just did 0:00:39.360 --> 0:00:43.280 one and three, so a hundred more d one more. 0:00:43.320 --> 0:00:44.760 I think we do a hundred and four a year, 0:00:44.960 --> 0:00:49.600 do we? Jerry? Yeah, because it's fifty two weeks times two. 0:00:49.880 --> 0:00:52.360 That's what I meant, So we've done one. I was 0:00:52.400 --> 0:00:58.880 just joking by hundred two more. Look bored, That's what 0:00:58.880 --> 0:01:02.720 I'm saying, Long year, buddy. Jerry's got on her principal shoes. 0:01:03.000 --> 0:01:05.680 She does. Josh just made Jerry walk up and down 0:01:05.720 --> 0:01:08.200 the hall so I could hear the clip clop of 0:01:08.319 --> 0:01:11.560 her of a wooden heel, and it definitely made me 0:01:11.720 --> 0:01:14.840 like I had a little PTSD of like, oh boy, 0:01:15.040 --> 0:01:17.399 someone's coming after us. It sounded like the principal was 0:01:17.440 --> 0:01:19.919 coming and we were in the office. We were smoking 0:01:19.920 --> 0:01:23.440 in the boys room, which I never did. I never 0:01:23.480 --> 0:01:25.880 did either, man, even when I was a high school smoker, 0:01:25.880 --> 0:01:28.880 I was like, are you out of your mind? Smoking 0:01:28.920 --> 0:01:33.720 the lobby in the I'd like escape, you know, campus 0:01:33.840 --> 0:01:36.440 the smoke or whatever. Was there a smoking section at 0:01:36.480 --> 0:01:38.759 your now, I wasn't that. What am I like your age? 0:01:40.480 --> 0:01:42.200 I don't think there was by the time I got 0:01:42.240 --> 0:01:45.800 there either, but I definitely remember maybe the first year 0:01:45.840 --> 0:01:48.120 or so. But I definitely remember when my sister was 0:01:48.160 --> 0:01:50.480 at my high school, she's six years older, there was 0:01:50.520 --> 0:01:53.440 a smoking area by the dumpster and like that's where 0:01:53.440 --> 0:01:55.440 they had a roped off her students could go smoke, 0:01:55.520 --> 0:01:59.120 and they're crazy, it's awesome. They're like, hey, we know 0:01:59.160 --> 0:02:01.600 it's a long day. If you need to go, if 0:02:01.600 --> 0:02:03.720 you need to go light up, just do it over here. 0:02:04.080 --> 0:02:06.960 That's the official place. Yeah, you need to go cool 0:02:07.000 --> 0:02:11.840 it up cools, yeah, or go feel alive with pleasure 0:02:13.639 --> 0:02:16.600 this newport. Yeah. I think so. I did smoke on 0:02:16.639 --> 0:02:19.880 a plane a couple of times. I was on one 0:02:20.000 --> 0:02:23.800 flight that I remember that had smoking, an international flight, 0:02:24.000 --> 0:02:28.120 and it was like, it's crazy. Yeah, there's no barrier, 0:02:28.160 --> 0:02:30.760 no partition, no nothing. It's just these are the roads 0:02:30.800 --> 0:02:33.040 that you consider in and smoke, which is all based 0:02:33.080 --> 0:02:35.160 the whole plane is a smoking section. Yeah, point, it 0:02:35.240 --> 0:02:38.000 is crazy. It's always funny when I see movies where 0:02:38.000 --> 0:02:42.240 people are smoking on busses and planes and restaurants, and 0:02:42.480 --> 0:02:47.120 it's really different time, different day, different era. Speaking of 0:02:47.160 --> 0:02:53.480 a different time, I guess it qualifies as a different time. Um, 0:02:53.520 --> 0:02:56.840 I think today, Chuck, that we should talk about in 0:02:57.080 --> 0:03:00.840 the era when people went postal trite and I'm looking 0:03:00.880 --> 0:03:03.079 at something up relevant. By the way, I'm not just 0:03:04.240 --> 0:03:08.280 checking my email right now. Well, I'll tap dance for us. Then. Well, 0:03:08.320 --> 0:03:10.840 I was just curious if there was a band called 0:03:10.919 --> 0:03:14.240 Going Postal, not if, but how many there were. And 0:03:14.280 --> 0:03:18.200 I just typed in going Postal band, and uh, I 0:03:18.280 --> 0:03:23.240 see quite a few Facebook pages called going Postal band, 0:03:23.320 --> 0:03:27.040 Twitter accounts going postals, some with an end with a 0:03:27.080 --> 0:03:32.560 little apostrophe going postal. Those are the little more loosey goosey, 0:03:32.680 --> 0:03:36.520 like Jimmy Buffett style, like yacht rocky. Yeah so yeah, 0:03:36.560 --> 0:03:40.400 of course people would take something horrific like workplace shootings 0:03:40.400 --> 0:03:42.360 and turn it into a band name. Dude, not only 0:03:42.400 --> 0:03:45.520 a band name. There's a franchise of male centers like 0:03:45.560 --> 0:03:47.960 where you get your mail sent to called going postal 0:03:48.280 --> 0:03:54.600 or got really nationwide franchise. Interesting, any article that you 0:03:54.640 --> 0:03:57.680 read about the post office, it will be called like 0:03:57.760 --> 0:04:02.240 going postal. Like it's completely been co opted and removed 0:04:02.240 --> 0:04:04.200 from his context, so much so that I would guess 0:04:04.240 --> 0:04:08.760 our younger listeners aren't fully aware of where that whole 0:04:08.760 --> 0:04:11.960 thing comes from. Yeah, And I think not that it's 0:04:12.160 --> 0:04:14.880 cool and acceptable, but I think the reason it's even 0:04:15.880 --> 0:04:19.559 allowed to happen to name things this now is because 0:04:19.560 --> 0:04:23.080 we are now in an era where that term uh 0:04:23.279 --> 0:04:26.800 as we'll learn in this podcast, and we've talked about 0:04:26.880 --> 0:04:29.479 the golden age of skyjacking and the golden age of 0:04:29.520 --> 0:04:32.960 this and that there was a weird golden age of 0:04:33.560 --> 0:04:38.160 postal workers shooting up their workplaces and it hasn't happened 0:04:38.200 --> 0:04:41.680 that much since then. And so that's what I think 0:04:41.720 --> 0:04:44.680 has allowed people to be like, hey, good band name. Huh. 0:04:44.960 --> 0:04:47.320 So I think because no one would call a band 0:04:47.680 --> 0:04:52.280 school shooter now, you know, because that's the active horrific 0:04:52.320 --> 0:04:54.520 thing going on. But it's the same thing. And you 0:04:54.560 --> 0:04:57.200 could make a really good argument or case that it 0:04:57.320 --> 0:05:02.279 grew out of the shooting. These were the first workplace 0:05:02.360 --> 0:05:05.360 mass shootings that America is exposed to. And I would 0:05:05.400 --> 0:05:08.000 put to you not that people don't shoot up post 0:05:08.040 --> 0:05:11.039 offices any longer, but that when it does happen, it 0:05:11.200 --> 0:05:15.039 is no longer even remotely as newsworthy as it once was, 0:05:15.440 --> 0:05:18.320 because at the beginning, we didn't understand what the heck 0:05:18.400 --> 0:05:22.600 was going on. Now we understand firsthand, all of us, 0:05:22.640 --> 0:05:26.000 anybody who has a job in America now understands what's 0:05:26.000 --> 0:05:28.600 going on. And it's also spread from beyond the post 0:05:28.680 --> 0:05:33.039 office into offices around the country, businesses around the country, 0:05:33.200 --> 0:05:39.120 and even into schools. Some people, yeah, some people make 0:05:39.200 --> 0:05:44.080 the argument that neoliberalism is to blame, and I'm okay 0:05:44.120 --> 0:05:49.200 with that, and that will explore that more later. Yeah, liberalists, 0:05:49.200 --> 0:05:51.320 did you like I'm trying new things in the two 0:05:51.360 --> 0:05:56.640 thousand twenty? Uh? Did you practice your delivery or all? Right? Well, 0:05:56.680 --> 0:05:58.960 but I nailed it. I think I think so too. 0:05:59.400 --> 0:06:03.960 I know that podcast on is looming on neoliberalism. It's 0:06:04.000 --> 0:06:07.080 long been on your list, So just a matter of 0:06:07.080 --> 0:06:12.880 getting around to it. I don't know how, maybe how 0:06:12.880 --> 0:06:15.920 about five years from now? Alright? Within the next five years, 0:06:16.000 --> 0:06:18.000 let's say that if we are still blessed enough to 0:06:18.040 --> 0:06:21.000 be doing this job. You keep saying that because apparently 0:06:21.040 --> 0:06:24.000 every time you do ten years passes and everybody's like, 0:06:24.000 --> 0:06:26.919 aren't can you believe that you even said that? So 0:06:26.960 --> 0:06:28.440 I just keep saying that because I want to keep 0:06:28.480 --> 0:06:30.640 doing this. I think it's gonna neat to think about, 0:06:30.800 --> 0:06:36.680 like having a twenty plus year partnership. Like there might 0:06:36.680 --> 0:06:39.000 be a podcasting Hall of Fame one day we can 0:06:39.000 --> 0:06:42.839 go visit it exactly, look at Mark Marin and uh, 0:06:42.920 --> 0:06:46.240 Karen and Georgia. Maybe they'll give us a senior discount. 0:06:47.720 --> 0:06:50.200 All right, So we should talk about and did you 0:06:50.240 --> 0:06:53.080 write this one? Actually no, Dave Rouse did. Oh man, 0:06:53.120 --> 0:06:55.680 he did a great job. And the way he put 0:06:55.720 --> 0:06:58.679 together the story I think works. Well, we're gonna follow 0:06:58.680 --> 0:07:01.600 this format. Why not? Uh, if it ain't broke, don't 0:07:01.640 --> 0:07:04.560 fix it. That's right, that's my mom tra And how 0:07:04.560 --> 0:07:07.440 long are you going to do that? It's like January, 0:07:07.600 --> 0:07:10.440 gonna do it all this month? So he starts off 0:07:10.440 --> 0:07:13.080 with a story of a man named Patrick Henry Cheryl, 0:07:13.720 --> 0:07:18.280 forty four year old man in Oklahoma City. His known 0:07:18.400 --> 0:07:22.400 in his neighborhood as crazy pat. He was a big dude. 0:07:22.440 --> 0:07:25.600 He was a loner um. He had a lot of 0:07:26.080 --> 0:07:28.600 He ticked a lot of boxes when it comes to 0:07:29.040 --> 0:07:32.480 mass shootings. He was basically like Pile from full mental 0:07:32.560 --> 0:07:35.240 jacket when he was in Yeah, it sounds like, yeah. 0:07:35.240 --> 0:07:37.040 He was a loner um. He had been caught as 0:07:37.040 --> 0:07:40.840 a peeping tom um. He hurt animals. He would tie 0:07:40.920 --> 0:07:45.800 cats and dogs defenses with baling wire. Not nice at all. 0:07:46.280 --> 0:07:48.440 He was shy, he was awkward, didn't have a lot 0:07:48.480 --> 0:07:52.560 of friends. He joined the Marine Corps, which is where 0:07:52.560 --> 0:07:55.200 he learned how to shoot que private Pile once again. 0:07:56.120 --> 0:07:58.560 And then after the Marines, he moved on with his 0:07:58.640 --> 0:08:02.600 mom and when she died in he was alone with 0:08:02.680 --> 0:08:05.480 his Ham radio. I don't want to throw any shade 0:08:05.480 --> 0:08:08.240 at Ham Radio, at the Hams out there, because remember 0:08:08.280 --> 0:08:10.920 we found out in our episode on Ham radios that 0:08:11.080 --> 0:08:14.400 like they are the most courteous, that's right, like civic 0:08:14.440 --> 0:08:18.120 minded people around. So this is a bad apple, right right. 0:08:18.120 --> 0:08:20.800 He doesn't exemplify the Ham radio community. And I didn't 0:08:20.800 --> 0:08:23.080 even want to mention that, but the idea of him 0:08:23.080 --> 0:08:25.480 alone with his Ham radio bears mentioning it. You can't 0:08:25.480 --> 0:08:29.040 obfuscate the truth. He's got to bring it out, address it, 0:08:29.120 --> 0:08:34.640 and then you know, keep going. That's the man. In 0:08:34.760 --> 0:08:38.439 eighty four he enlisted in the National Guard of Oklahoma. Uh. 0:08:38.480 --> 0:08:44.240 And in he started work, as you know what, a 0:08:44.520 --> 0:08:50.560 postal carrier in Edmund, Oklahoma. Right. So, he Um, by 0:08:50.600 --> 0:08:54.200 all accounts, was a I don't know if disturbed is 0:08:54.200 --> 0:08:57.240 the right word, but maybe it is. Certainly it's a 0:08:57.320 --> 0:09:03.880 less balanced individual than than probably the average person for sure. Um. 0:09:03.920 --> 0:09:08.160 So when he was told that he Um was going 0:09:08.200 --> 0:09:10.679 to be fired if he didn't shape up, he wasn't 0:09:11.160 --> 0:09:13.920 super great at his job now, he wasn't according to 0:09:13.920 --> 0:09:17.720 his supervisors. He would deliver mail the wrong address. Um, 0:09:17.760 --> 0:09:20.880 he would be late to work a lot, and he 0:09:20.960 --> 0:09:24.439 was given a notice like you're gonna be fired if 0:09:24.440 --> 0:09:27.000 you don't, if you don't start doing what we want 0:09:27.080 --> 0:09:32.400 you to. Uh. The next day he showed up to 0:09:32.480 --> 0:09:35.640 work and without saying a word. This is what makes 0:09:35.679 --> 0:09:39.280 this one so creepy, he went to his supervisor, he 0:09:39.320 --> 0:09:42.080 went to find the postmaster and he shot them without 0:09:42.080 --> 0:09:46.679 saying a word. And he started moving around his workplace 0:09:46.720 --> 0:09:50.480 at this Edmund, Oklahoma post office, and within fifteen minutes 0:09:50.840 --> 0:09:56.360 had killed fifteen people, including himself. Yeah. Um. Side note 0:09:56.440 --> 0:09:59.040 one of those people was the grandson of Notre Dame 0:09:59.120 --> 0:10:04.680 football coach New Rockney. Um. People were locking themselves in vaults. Uh, 0:10:04.800 --> 0:10:07.680 they survived, so he didn't kill everyone in the office, 0:10:07.840 --> 0:10:09.720 which you might be asking, why is the post office 0:10:09.720 --> 0:10:13.720 have a vault stamps? Yeah, they really care about those stamps. 0:10:14.240 --> 0:10:19.080 They do valuable. They are people hiding in offices and 0:10:19.440 --> 0:10:22.960 under their desks, and by the time the swat team 0:10:23.000 --> 0:10:26.360 gets there, they find him dead at his desk. He 0:10:26.400 --> 0:10:30.920 went to his desk and killed himself. Right, So fifteen minutes, 0:10:31.440 --> 0:10:35.560 killed fifteen people, including himself, and did it without saying 0:10:35.559 --> 0:10:38.520 a word. From what all people are saying. Yeah, and 0:10:38.559 --> 0:10:43.440 this was, um, one of the bloodiest events in American 0:10:43.520 --> 0:10:46.800 history mass shootings at the time. Um, there were a 0:10:46.840 --> 0:10:50.000 couple before this, but this was pretty early on in 0:10:50.080 --> 0:10:54.720 mass shootings. Um. Yeah, America had not really been fully 0:10:54.760 --> 0:10:59.200 acquainted with mass shooting. Kid. They were so rare, so 0:10:59.320 --> 0:11:02.440 rare that they were huge, huge, huge stories. And they 0:11:02.520 --> 0:11:05.960 also seemed like total anomalies, not the very beginnings of 0:11:05.960 --> 0:11:08.800 a pattern that was starting to emerge. That's not what 0:11:08.880 --> 0:11:11.680 people thought of these things at the time. They you couldn't. 0:11:11.760 --> 0:11:14.360 If you go back and like watch Dan Rather reporting 0:11:14.360 --> 0:11:16.560 on this, he can't make heads or tails of it. 0:11:16.559 --> 0:11:21.880 It's just the most senseless thing. That's what they use. Senseless, nonsensical, insensible, 0:11:22.120 --> 0:11:25.520 like they just couldn't understand it. Yeah. The one um, 0:11:25.559 --> 0:11:29.240 of course, the famous sixties six clock tower sniper and 0:11:29.400 --> 0:11:31.240 at the University of Texas. Have you ever seen that 0:11:31.320 --> 0:11:35.480 documentary on that. It's done in like the animation, through 0:11:35.520 --> 0:11:38.880 the animation software like in Waking Life, and somehow it 0:11:38.880 --> 0:11:41.920 makes it even more disturbing. I have not seen that, 0:11:42.080 --> 0:11:44.679 but I'm gonna see it because this stuff fascinates me. 0:11:45.440 --> 0:11:48.360 UMO one, I don't know if we should ever cover 0:11:48.440 --> 0:11:52.120 that one. The one that mcdonald'son California was just horrific. 0:11:53.240 --> 0:11:55.360 That and the difference between that one and most of 0:11:55.360 --> 0:11:58.360 these take place over it always seems like it's like 0:11:58.520 --> 0:12:01.200 six minutes, ten minutes, twelve minuts. The one at the 0:12:01.240 --> 0:12:06.360 McDonald's was seventy seven minutes of just bloodshed and shooting. 0:12:06.760 --> 0:12:10.800 It was awful, It was so uh, but they were 0:12:10.800 --> 0:12:13.679 still anomalies. They were anomalies. And this was the first 0:12:13.720 --> 0:12:16.920 one that took place in an office. The New York 0:12:17.000 --> 0:12:19.480 Daily News said, Cheryl put a new wrinkle to this 0:12:19.559 --> 0:12:21.960 kind of violence. He brought it into the office, right, 0:12:22.040 --> 0:12:26.400 So he was not the first postal carrier to come 0:12:26.440 --> 0:12:31.080 to his workplace and shoot up the place, right. Um, 0:12:31.200 --> 0:12:34.280 he he targeted like the back office. But there there 0:12:34.280 --> 0:12:36.520 have been a couple before I saw, even going back 0:12:36.520 --> 0:12:39.880 into the seventies, where postal workers had come to work 0:12:39.920 --> 0:12:43.360 and shot the place up, usually targeting a supervisor. Yeah, 0:12:43.360 --> 0:12:45.679 and it's it was never this many people, I think 0:12:45.760 --> 0:12:48.440 was one of the big differences. That's a huge difference. Yeah. 0:12:48.440 --> 0:12:50.840 The one in South Carolina, three I think, was just 0:12:51.840 --> 0:12:56.880 one person um killed with the twelve gauge. The postbaster 0:12:57.040 --> 0:13:00.680 barricaded himself in a storage room I ronically of a 0:13:00.720 --> 0:13:03.800 convenience store. You'll see why later. So just put a 0:13:03.800 --> 0:13:06.760 pin in that, but was actually killed in the convenience 0:13:06.800 --> 0:13:09.480 store across the street. Yeah, and actually it wasn't just him. 0:13:09.520 --> 0:13:12.720 There were other people barricaded in that convenience store storage 0:13:12.800 --> 0:13:15.280 room with him, but he was the only one he shot. 0:13:15.800 --> 0:13:17.959 And that's a pattern that started to emerge. The more 0:13:18.000 --> 0:13:21.319 people started looking into these things, the more they were 0:13:21.400 --> 0:13:24.959 like a lot of these are They're not random. These 0:13:24.960 --> 0:13:27.360 guys let people live that they could have easily killed, 0:13:27.960 --> 0:13:30.040 and they went out of their way to find people 0:13:30.080 --> 0:13:33.080 who they did kill or tried to kill. And a 0:13:33.160 --> 0:13:36.400 lot of times it would be their supervisor or the postmaster, 0:13:36.640 --> 0:13:39.360 somebody who was in charge of bossing them around, or 0:13:39.480 --> 0:13:43.160 possibly a co worker who had you know, um, gotten 0:13:43.160 --> 0:13:46.400 a promotion instead of them. Yeah, that happened specifically in 0:13:46.400 --> 0:13:50.240 one case, and another guy was stalking a co worker 0:13:50.480 --> 0:13:53.200 and he came to work, UM, and I think he 0:13:53.280 --> 0:13:55.440 didn't end up killing her, Is that right? No, he 0:13:55.520 --> 0:14:00.520 killed killed a male employee instead. So by the time 0:14:00.559 --> 0:14:03.640 this Edmunds, Oklahoma, a lot of people will point to 0:14:03.679 --> 0:14:07.080 that is like, that's not the first postal shooting. This 0:14:07.160 --> 0:14:10.120 is the one that really started to catch everybody's attention. Yeah, 0:14:10.160 --> 0:14:12.560 from eighty six to ninety nine, there were fifteen different 0:14:12.640 --> 0:14:19.400 incidences or incidents, But you were right by the way, 0:14:19.440 --> 0:14:23.000 I know, but it's just a mouthful. Um. That involved 0:14:23.080 --> 0:14:29.120 current or former postal workers killing coworkers thirty four people 0:14:29.560 --> 0:14:34.080 over a thirteen year period, which included that fourteen in Oklahoma. Yeah, 0:14:34.440 --> 0:14:37.960 a lot of people point to is the peak of 0:14:38.320 --> 0:14:41.880 the going postal era, not even necessarily because of all 0:14:41.920 --> 0:14:44.880 the bloodshed that year, I mean there were some in 0:14:44.960 --> 0:14:48.480 ninety three, but more just the way that it leached 0:14:48.600 --> 0:14:52.920 into the cultural consciousness by that time, I think was 0:14:52.920 --> 0:14:55.200 when it first appeared in print. To write. Ninety three 0:14:55.280 --> 0:14:58.040 was when it appeared in print in the St. Petersburg, 0:14:58.120 --> 0:15:02.480 Florida Times. And ironically, they were talking about a symposium 0:15:02.480 --> 0:15:06.080 on workplace violence that was sponsored by the United States 0:15:06.080 --> 0:15:10.800 Postal Service, and the article says, um which has seen 0:15:10.960 --> 0:15:14.000 the US Postal Service has seen so many outbursts that 0:15:14.040 --> 0:15:17.440 in some circles, excessive stress is known as going postal. 0:15:17.880 --> 0:15:22.680 This is that same year Seinfeld debuted I think they 0:15:22.720 --> 0:15:27.600 debuted Newman as a character, and they basically said he's 0:15:27.600 --> 0:15:33.880 a postal worker and referenced postal workers going crazy. Sure, um, 0:15:33.960 --> 0:15:36.880 who would you who would you like to be? I'll 0:15:36.880 --> 0:15:41.160 be Newman? Okay, who are you? I gotta be George? Then, 0:15:41.800 --> 0:15:43.440 I mean you had to tell the people that's what 0:15:43.480 --> 0:15:47.080 I mean. Oh, I see, I thought you were presenting 0:15:47.080 --> 0:15:50.280 me with a fake choice. Now let me this is George. 0:15:50.400 --> 0:15:52.240 Let me ask you something. What do you do for 0:15:52.280 --> 0:15:56.120 a living? Newman? That's my George? I mean United States 0:15:56.120 --> 0:15:59.960 postal worker. Aren't those of the guys that always go crazy. 0:16:00.120 --> 0:16:03.640 He come back with a gun and shoot everybody sometimes 0:16:05.080 --> 0:16:07.240 remember that scene, so do I went and looked at it. 0:16:07.280 --> 0:16:11.080 There's actually more to it. Did. They ask him why, 0:16:11.080 --> 0:16:13.560 and Numan actually explains it, and there's actually a lot 0:16:13.560 --> 0:16:17.080 of water to his explanation. It will turn out, he says, 0:16:17.720 --> 0:16:21.520 the mail never stops. Mail never stops, right, it's always coming. 0:16:21.560 --> 0:16:24.160 It's always and then it's publisher's clearing house weak or 0:16:24.200 --> 0:16:26.360 something like that. He's like it never. They have to 0:16:26.400 --> 0:16:28.360 like snap him out of like this tirade that he 0:16:28.400 --> 0:16:32.360 goes on. But it's it's actually supposedly part of what 0:16:32.440 --> 0:16:37.080 was responsible for this phenomenon, the ceaseless pressure to constantly 0:16:37.080 --> 0:16:39.960 move the mail as fast as possible. I've been watching 0:16:39.960 --> 0:16:42.640 Seinfeld a lot lately. Yeah, yeah, what do you think? 0:16:42.920 --> 0:16:45.560 It's great? It holds up pretty well, holds up pretty well. Yeah, 0:16:45.600 --> 0:16:49.840 it's it's and it's funny to hear Larry David um 0:16:50.000 --> 0:16:53.240 because this was before I knew. I knew he created Seinfeld, 0:16:53.240 --> 0:16:54.800 but before Curbs, so I didn't know what he looked 0:16:54.800 --> 0:16:57.600 like or sounded like. And he's his voice a lot 0:16:57.800 --> 0:17:00.680 like he's a voice of Steinbren and there's a couple 0:17:00.680 --> 0:17:03.000 of other things, like they'll just be a random off 0:17:03.040 --> 0:17:06.040 screen line and it's Larry David and now watching it, 0:17:06.040 --> 0:17:08.800 it just cracks me up. It's but yeah, it holds 0:17:08.800 --> 0:17:11.760 it pretty well. Obviously, it's some of it. We're in 0:17:11.840 --> 0:17:15.000 different times now. Some of it's kind of like untoward 0:17:15.600 --> 0:17:21.480 but not too bad. Okay, I'll just say that, Yeah, 0:17:21.640 --> 0:17:23.919 it was. It was the nineties. No, I know, it's 0:17:23.920 --> 0:17:25.879 a different era, different era, and that was even the 0:17:25.920 --> 0:17:30.359 emergence of the PC era. But compared to today, it's 0:17:30.359 --> 0:17:33.920 it's like like you can't see that kind of stuff. Um, 0:17:33.960 --> 0:17:35.600 should we take a break or you got I got 0:17:35.640 --> 0:17:38.359 one more cultural reference. There was a um, there was 0:17:38.400 --> 0:17:40.840 a Simpsons and I don't know what year it came out, 0:17:40.840 --> 0:17:46.159 but I'll bet it was around where, um, Flanders and 0:17:46.200 --> 0:17:48.879 Homer become like best friends because Flanders takes Homer to 0:17:48.920 --> 0:17:53.120 a football game and Flanders learns that he can't stand Homer. 0:17:53.160 --> 0:17:55.040 It doesn't like to be around him, and he has 0:17:55.080 --> 0:17:58.239 a dream where where he climbs a clock tower with 0:17:58.280 --> 0:18:01.080 a gun and starts shooting at Everybody's like, there's Homer, 0:18:01.320 --> 0:18:04.520 there's another Homer. There's Homer, and one of the people 0:18:04.560 --> 0:18:07.280 he shoots at is a postal carrier who drops his 0:18:07.359 --> 0:18:10.080 mail bag and produces like an assault rifle and starts 0:18:10.080 --> 0:18:12.920 shooting back. And it's just the most casual thing that 0:18:13.280 --> 0:18:17.560 requires zero explanation whatsoever, because by this time everyone knew 0:18:18.040 --> 0:18:21.399 going postal mail carriers. They're not just like some friendly 0:18:21.440 --> 0:18:23.840 guy who you know, gets you know, chased off by 0:18:23.880 --> 0:18:25.440 a dog every once in a while is the worst 0:18:25.440 --> 0:18:27.840 thing that happens. This guy is like on the verge 0:18:27.840 --> 0:18:30.480 of cracking and killing everybody, and he comes to my 0:18:30.520 --> 0:18:32.560 house every day, like what is going on? And this 0:18:32.640 --> 0:18:36.080 is when that kind of started to really rise to 0:18:36.200 --> 0:18:39.000 the surface, that that question. Yeah, and like you hinted at, 0:18:39.200 --> 0:18:42.800 I'm glad you picked this because it's there. Uh. As 0:18:42.800 --> 0:18:44.800 it turns out there is something to it. It wasn't 0:18:44.800 --> 0:18:47.920 just coincidence. And we'll talk a little bit more about 0:18:47.920 --> 0:19:11.440 that in other cases spread after this. All right, So, 0:19:11.720 --> 0:19:15.760 like we said, most of these killings occurred roughly over 0:19:15.800 --> 0:19:19.640 eighty six to about ninety seven UM, but they date 0:19:19.640 --> 0:19:21.800 back to eighty three and as late as two thousand 0:19:21.960 --> 0:19:29.520 six UM. One of another big famous one was Thomas McIlvaine. 0:19:30.280 --> 0:19:34.400 He was in Michigan. Yeah, Royal Loac, Michigan, just above Detroit. Yeah. 0:19:34.440 --> 0:19:37.560 This guy was martial arts enthusiast and he was in 0:19:37.560 --> 0:19:41.560 the Marine Corps as well, and he was discharged dishonorably 0:19:42.359 --> 0:19:45.840 for running over a car with a tank. Okay, so 0:19:46.960 --> 0:19:49.080 I was watching I read that as cat by the way. 0:19:49.080 --> 0:19:51.600 The first like three times I read this running over 0:19:51.640 --> 0:19:53.359 a cat with the tad, I was like, oh my god, 0:19:53.720 --> 0:19:57.920 but it was a carcharged him not as bad unless 0:19:57.920 --> 0:20:02.119 there was a cat in the car to he was driving. Yeah, 0:20:02.359 --> 0:20:08.080 tuneses knew about going postal. Um. So there's a documentary 0:20:08.080 --> 0:20:11.000 out there called Murdered by Proxy How America Went postal, 0:20:11.600 --> 0:20:16.800 And they go to great lengths to to basically say 0:20:17.119 --> 0:20:21.600 Thomas McIlvaine was not totally off his rocker, like he 0:20:21.680 --> 0:20:26.680 was considered by his coworkers. Still today, people who were 0:20:26.800 --> 0:20:30.040 there when he came and shot up the place, victims 0:20:30.119 --> 0:20:34.119 of his shooting. Still some of them will say, I 0:20:34.160 --> 0:20:37.080 don't condone what he did, but I totally understand it. 0:20:37.800 --> 0:20:40.600 And when he was yes, because he was treated so 0:20:40.720 --> 0:20:45.200 poorly by the management and so aggressively poorly and hostily 0:20:45.800 --> 0:20:48.800 that that they basically said like this was just a 0:20:48.800 --> 0:20:51.040 powder kig waiting to happen. And when they heard that 0:20:51.119 --> 0:20:53.720 this was going on, they didn't know who it was not. 0:20:53.960 --> 0:20:56.240 They said, like, we didn't just think I was Tom 0:20:56.240 --> 0:20:58.880 Tom McIlvaine. They said, it could have been any one 0:20:58.920 --> 0:21:04.560 of us because this this, this, this was so toxic there. So, yes, 0:21:04.760 --> 0:21:07.440 it's easy to characterize him as a wing nut because 0:21:07.520 --> 0:21:09.520 he shot up his post office and killed a bunch 0:21:09.560 --> 0:21:12.200 of people. But there are other people who were there 0:21:12.240 --> 0:21:15.800 who say, that's that's that's not a full picture of 0:21:15.800 --> 0:21:18.040 of who he was. Yeah. I mean if there's a 0:21:18.119 --> 0:21:22.480 situation where there is a um, a workplace shooting and 0:21:22.520 --> 0:21:25.200 a hundred percent of the people don't go, oh, well 0:21:25.240 --> 0:21:30.320 it was this guy, uh, then it might bear looking 0:21:30.320 --> 0:21:33.480 into the to the workplace environment. Again not condoning in 0:21:33.480 --> 0:21:38.320 any way, but it's like he it's just interesting to 0:21:38.359 --> 0:21:40.480 think about and once we see the reports that came 0:21:40.480 --> 0:21:42.600 out later, like I said, there are some weight to 0:21:42.640 --> 0:21:46.399 some of this stuff. UM ninety three, I mean mclevaine, 0:21:46.400 --> 0:21:49.960 I guess we should say, um in six minutes, killed 0:21:50.000 --> 0:21:53.880 four people, wounded for others, killed himself. He let off 0:21:53.880 --> 0:21:57.199 a hundred rounds of shells in six minutes. That's I 0:21:57.200 --> 0:21:59.760 can't imagine what that must have been. Like. Dude, that 0:21:59.840 --> 0:22:03.679 my Donald's guy had an oozy I know, I I 0:22:03.960 --> 0:22:05.879 there are very few people that I hate, but I 0:22:05.960 --> 0:22:09.600 hate that man. I hate him. Yea, it was. He 0:22:09.680 --> 0:22:13.919 was a despicable human being. Yeah. So ninety three was 0:22:14.040 --> 0:22:19.320 and I remember this actually, Um, there were two post 0:22:19.320 --> 0:22:22.399 office shootings on the same day. I remember I was 0:22:22.400 --> 0:22:24.399 in college at the time, and it was in the 0:22:24.440 --> 0:22:27.240 middle of the going postal era, all the headlines and 0:22:27.280 --> 0:22:29.560 I remember two of them happened on the same day, 0:22:29.560 --> 0:22:32.240 and it was almost I mean, it was horrific, but 0:22:32.320 --> 0:22:34.879 it was almost like this weird, like you gotta be 0:22:34.960 --> 0:22:38.960 kidding me. Yeah, exactly. Um, And you know this was 0:22:39.000 --> 0:22:43.480 back pre widespread internet even, and it was still like 0:22:43.520 --> 0:22:46.080 a big deal on campus, everyone talking about. Yeah. I 0:22:46.080 --> 0:22:50.200 can imagine, um, because I think it confirmed this general 0:22:50.280 --> 0:22:54.960 suspicion that had been confirmed officially that there's something going 0:22:55.000 --> 0:22:57.800 on and there's something to this going postal thing. Yeah. 0:22:57.840 --> 0:22:59.760 And one of them was not a mail carrier, and 0:23:00.080 --> 0:23:04.760 one of them was a mechanic, right, and another that 0:23:04.840 --> 0:23:07.840 was passed over for a promotion killed two people wounded 0:23:07.840 --> 0:23:10.200 two others. His name is Larry Jason, and this is 0:23:10.240 --> 0:23:13.000 the one who killed the woman who got his job. No, 0:23:13.160 --> 0:23:15.520 he was he went after the woman. Oh no, no, no, 0:23:15.560 --> 0:23:17.879 you're right. I'm sorry. I think he wounded her. I 0:23:17.920 --> 0:23:20.600 don't know if he killed her. Oh yeah, I wounded 0:23:20.640 --> 0:23:23.440 two people, Yeah, including supervisor and the woman. He killed 0:23:23.480 --> 0:23:25.560 two people and then wounded two others. And then the 0:23:25.560 --> 0:23:30.560 other guy was Mark Hillburn in California. He killed his 0:23:30.680 --> 0:23:33.720 mother and her home before going to the post office. 0:23:33.760 --> 0:23:35.960 And he's the one that was looking for a woman 0:23:36.000 --> 0:23:38.520 that he was stalking. She wasn't there, so he killed 0:23:38.560 --> 0:23:41.719