Edmond post office shooting location

This is the location where the Edmond post office shooting took place.

It is situated at 200 North Broadway in Edmond, Oklahoma.

Shooting

On the morning of August 20th, 1986, a part-time postal worker named Patrick Sherrill arrived at this parking lot with three pistols hidden in his mail pouch.

After entering the building, he went looking for Richard Esser, a supervisor who had reprimanded him the previous day.

When he saw Esser, he calmly walked over towards him, pulled out a gun, and shot him dead without saying a word.

At that point, chaos erupted, and Sherrill turned his attention to his coworkers. For the next few seconds, he stood in the middle of the office with a .44 caliber pistol in each hand, firing at the staff members as they fled.

When a group of employees bolted for a side exit, Sherrill pursued them and killed one of them in the parking lot. He then shut the doors and returned to the main office area, where he proceeded to hunt down people who were hiding underneath desks and in cubicles.

Sherrill was a former marine who had obtained "expert" weapon qualification badges for both rifles and pistols. Using his skills and experience, he calmly walked from one workstation to the next, shooting his terrified colleagues as they tried to hide.

A few minutes after the killings began, the police arrived and set up a perimeter around the building.

After spending more than half an hour trying to communicate with the gunman, they decided that it was time to send in the SWAT team.

When the SWAT team stormed the post office, they found Sherrill's body inside, lying among some of the victims. He had shot himself in the head shortly after the police arrived.

In total, fourteen employees were murdered in the attack. Six people were also injured.

At the time, it was the third-worst mass shooting in American history.

The event (and others like it) inspired the phrase "going postal," a slang term that describes someone who violently lashes out in anger.

Preceding events

One day before the shooting, two of Sherrill's supervisors escorted him into a glass office and reprimanded him in plain view of the other employees.

The 47-year-old reportedly had a "spotty" track record as a mailman. Sherrill's coworkers reported that he frequently disagreed with his bosses, believing they were conspiring to remove him from his job.

On more than one occasion, he was chastised for delivering mail to the wrong addresses. However, he always blamed his mistakes on the sorting system. In March 1986, he was suspended for two weeks after a customer witnessed him spraying mace at a dog that posed no danger to him.

Sherrill was an "eccentric" man who lived by himself. His coworkers described him as aloof, awkward, and hesitant to socialize.

When he entered the post office that day, it is likely that he intended on killing both of the supervisors who had reprimanded him. However, one of them had miraculously overslept for the first time in his career.

Witnesses said that the gunfire sounded like "firecrackers" or someone dropping a tray of mail. It wasn't until they saw people running and screaming that they realized a gunman was in the building.

Memorial

In 1989, a memorial fountain was erected on the southern side of the post office, facing East Campbell Street. The fountain, which depicts a man and woman holding a ribbon, contains the names of the fourteen men and women who lost their lives in the massacre.

There are fourteen pumps that supply the fountain with water, one for each victim.

The victims were Patti Lou Welch (27), Thomas Wade Shader (31), Paul Michael Rockne (33), Jerry Ralph Pyle (51), Leroy Orrin Phillips (42), Kenneth W. Morey (49), William F. Miller (30), Patricia Ann Chambers (41), Judy Stephens Denney (41), Richard C. Esser (38), Patricia A. Gabbard (47), Jonna Gragert Hamilton (30), Patty Jean Husband (48), and Betty Ann Jarred (34).