When the frightening ‘going postal’ trend came to NJ

On October 10, 1991, former postal employee Joseph Harris shot and killed two former co-workers at the Ridgewood post office. According to the book, “On This Day in New Jersey History.” the night before, Harris, dressed as a ninja, killed his supervisor with a samurai sword and shot her fiancé to death. Harris was convicted and sentenced to death, but died in prison in 1996.

This was the era in which the phrase “going postal” became popular; there had been an incident in Edmond, Oklahoma, where 14 people were shot and killed in a post office shooting. In that case the shooter (a postman) committed suicide after the spree. After the New Jersey killings, in November of 1991, a fired postal worker in Royal Oak, Michigan killed five people including himself.

There were two postal incidents in May of 1993, one in Dearborn, Michigan, and one in Dana Point, California. In the Michigan shooting, one person was killed and the shooter killed himself; in California, a man shot his mother and her dog and then shot two postal workers. There were two post office shootings in 2006, one in 2017. There was also a shooting at a UPS facility in California, also in 2017.

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