Our safety came last again
After letters containing the deadly toxin ricin were detected in mail destined for elected officials, law enforcement--already on high alert after the Boston Marathon bombings--went into action. The FBI was eager to find someone to charge--so much so that they identified and demonized a suspect who turned out to be innocent. But the Feds didn't have a minute to worry about the safety of postal workers who might be exposed to ricin.
, a veteran letter carrier in New York City and member of National Association of Letter Carriers Branch 36, says this disregard for postal workers' lives was reminiscent of the weeks after September 11, when there was an anthrax attack through the mail.
ON APRIL 16, a day after the Boston Marathon bombings, news media reported that mail containing the poison ricin was sent to Mississippi Sen. Roger Wicker and one other official. Soon after, it was announced ricin-laced mail was sent to President Barack Obama.
As yet, there have been no reports of ricin-related illness among those who handled the mail. However, I find it disturbing that postal union leaders first found out about this potentially lethal attack from news reports, and not the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) officials who were investigating the matter.
I've worked at USPS in New York City for over a decade. My facility processed two of the anthrax letters sent to media companies in Manhattan in the wake of the September 11, 2001, attacks. I remember government and corporate media kept busy claiming it was a second-wave assault by al-Qaeda or Iraq.
Meanwhile, five people, including Washington, D.C., postal workers Thomas Morris Jr. and Joe Curseen Jr. were killed, and 17 others were injured by exposure to the spore-laden mail. While no effort was spared to protect the elites, Brother Morris' concerns reportedly went unheeded by his supervisor.
After eight years, the FBI traced the attack to an Army anthrax specialist who worked at a U.S. bio-weapons lab in Fort Detrick, Md. Part of the reason why the murders went unsolved is because Fort Detrick scientists were investigating the case.
Suspected copycat letters were found in my station in the weeks following the anthrax attack. Instead of evacuating the building, I remember management simply putting up a piece of yellow caution tape around the sorting case they were found in.
I remember at that moment it became clear to me that postal management was not just incompetent, but callously so. I remember coworkers going about their jobs unwilling to "make an issue out of it," not from apathy, but from despair. I was one of them.
It is over a decade later, and the memory of our acceptance of being treated that way pains me more than the rage I feel at those responsible. It is over a decade later, and USPS workers are still the last to know. It is over a decade later, and we should no longer accept being treated this way.
