Postal Workers Wonder if Attack Could Have Been Prevented

Fired letter carrier Mark Richard Hilbun had been ticking for some time. Then on Thursday, Orange County sheriff’s deputies said, he went off, killing two people and wounding three others in a bloody rampage that started at his mother’s house.

The attack has left some postal workers and witnesses wondering whether local law enforcement or the U.S. Postal Service should have taken more precautions against Hilbun, who was known to have serious psychiatric problems and had reportedly stalked a woman letter carrier, Kim Springer, for months.

“All the signs were there,” said Steve Eberhardt, 30, Springer’s boyfriend. “As far as I’m concerned, this never should have happened.”

Witnesses and postal workers say that well before Thursday’s shooting at the Dana Point post office, they suspected that Hilbun’s mental illness and obsession with Springer might turn lethal.

His strange behavior was reportedly known to his former co-workers. He had been hospitalized for being manic-depressive. Springer had allegedly been harassed so many times by Hilbun that she contacted police twice since last Saturday.

Hilbun’s problems became so apparent that Dana Point Postmaster Don Lowe told his employees to be on the lookout for him and ordered them to lock doors and gates at the facility that were not in use.

Yet the public entrance to the post office remained open, and no guards were provided for Springer or the post office, according to authorities. Postal inspectors say neither they nor the Postal Service police were notified about Hilbun until the day of the shooting.

“It’s a classic case of where the system fired him, but it didn’t solve the problem,” said U.S. Chief Postal Inspector Ken Hunter, who said Hilbun was dismissed for allegedly stalking Springer.

Generally, police and law enforcement experts say that dealing with suspected stalkers and harassment charges can be difficult unless someone is caught in the act or there is evidence of an immediate threat.

In the Hilbun case, sheriff’s deputies said what they knew about the suspect did not signal that the problem was serious enough to launch an immediate search for Hilbun in the days before the shooting.

“Under the circumstances, we were doing all we could on this,” Sheriff’s Lt. Bob Rivas said. “There were no indications to us of any death threats. Who knows what someone is going to do in a situation like this?”

Rivas, however, said he was unfamiliar with the details of a sheriff’s report made last Saturday.

According to the report, Springer complained that she was getting harassing letters from Hilbun. A deputy advised Springer to get a restraining order and to contact police in Laguna Beach, where she lived. He also noted in his report that Hilbun’s contacting Springer was a violation of his probation from an earlier conviction.

Laguna Beach Police Chief Neil J. Purcell Jr. said Springer called his department Monday evening to report that Hilbun had shown up at her house. She also told the police dispatcher that she would be getting a restraining order and that she had filed a report with the Sheriff’s Department.

But, Purcell said, because she apparently failed to mention that Hilbun was on probation and had violated its terms by contacting her, his department simply sent officers to patrol the area where she lived, and they found nothing.

Springer was in seclusion Friday and could not be reached for comment.

Purcell maintained that his department had no hint that Hilbun was threatening or violent. If Laguna Beach officers knew that he was violating his probation, they would have taken more efforts to find him, Purcell added.

“All I can say in our defense is that we had never heard of this individual until (Monday),” Purcell said. “It was like a lot of requests we get for patrol checks. From what I can tell, it was handled properly.”

On Wednesday afternoon, Purcell said, his department received a report from the Sheriff’s Department, stating that Hilbun had sent a harassing letter to Springer on April 30 and that it might be a violation of his probation.

“Whether the sheriff was looking for him from the minute they got it, I don’t know,” Purcell said. “I doubt it was that high priority a case. I don’t think anyone was dragging their feet on it.”

George Wright, a criminal justice instructor at Rancho Santiago College in Santa Ana, said police get reports of “a lot of threats and threatening letters. You just can’t go after all of them. Police don’t have the resources.”

W. Garrett Capune, a professor of criminal justice and sociology at Cal State Fullerton, said temporary restraining orders and other measures against harassment do not provide a real safeguard because targets of those efforts usually ignore them. Most likely, he said, nothing can be done unless police substantial evidence.

“You just can’t intervene on whether you think someone will do something. It’s unconstitutional,” Capune said.

David Smith, a postal inspector in charge of investigating the Dana Point post office shooting, said no law enforcement agency was actively looking for Hilbun after he left a series of notes for Springer in her mailbox and along her mail route.

“There are hundreds of temporary restraining orders out there at any one time,” Smith said, adding that he thought measures taken against Hilbun were adequate. “Doors were locked, the back door was locked, but Hilbun knew when the mail drop was and he forced his way in.”

In general, Smith said, the Postal Service does not provide guards for employees or facilities.

“People were aware he had serious problems, but they did not know he was ready to blow,” Smith said.

Pamela Prince, another postal inspector, said that her office and postal police were not notified about Hilbun until the day of the shooting and that no guards were provided for Springer as her boyfriend Eberhardt contends.

With 1,500 police officers and 2,000 inspectors nationwide, the Postal Service has one of the smallest law enforcement divisions in the federal government. “We just can’t provide guards at 40,000 facilities. No way, unless the public wants to pay a lot more for a stamp,” Prince said.

Though the Postal Service has had a rash of violent incidents, Prince described the Hilbun case as considerably different than other shootings and acts of violence that have plagued the service for some time.

“This case was not directed at management, supervisors or conditions in the workplace,” Prince said. “It involved unrequited love for a mail carrier, which was not seen as a Postal Service-related case.”

Donald Rubright, Hilbun’s attorney, said, however, that his client had never threatened Springer and was angry at the Postal Service for firing him. Some eyewitnesses to Thursday’s shooting said that when Hilbun entered the building he tried to get into the postmaster’s office.

Since 1983, 34 people have been killed and 20 wounded in 12 post-office-related shootings around the nation, including those Thursday in Dana Point and Dearborn, Mich.

Last year, the rash of incidents prompted a congressional investigation that concluded that the Postal Service was beset with problems, some job-connected and others involving unsuitable employees.

Security in many cases, postal workers say, usually involves a common sense approach--locking doors and windows, being on the lookout for troubled employees, or conducting worker counseling programs.

But employee entrances at many facilities are unsecured or do not require electronically coded cards to get in. And the usual security measures, postal workers say, are ineffective against a seriously disturbed person bent on gaining entry to a building.

For example, in November, 1991, Michael Houston, a mail clerk at the Santa Ana mail facility on Sunflower Avenue, entered the lobby and smashed a glass display case with a hammer. “The world is going too fast!” he yelled.

According to reports of the incident, Houston, who was known to have emotional problems, had managed to enter the facility more than a dozen times while he was suspended from work.

“They just don’t want to spend the money for security,” said one postal worker who requested anonymity. “There is some gallows humor among mail workers that we won’t get guards until someone gets killed.”