16-07-2025
‘I'm gonna go postal.' Mail carrier purposely hits USPS vehicle in VA, feds say
A woman working for the U.S. Postal Service 'became violent' when she lost her phone and blamed her co-workers, then purposely crashed into a USPS vehicle, totaling it in the Virginia parking lot, according to federal court filings.
Lolita Brickhouse, 31, pleaded guilty on July 15 to causing more than $42,000 in damage at the USPS mail delivery facility in Falls Church, about a 5-mile drive west from Arlington, on Jan. 16, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Virginia said in a news release.
Now Brickhouse, of Falls Church, is facing up to 10 years in prison on a charge of destruction of government property exceeding $1,000 in damage, according to federal prosecutors.
Her federal public defender did not immediately return McClatchy News' request for comment July 16.
After Brickhouse's shift as a mail carrier ended the evening of Jan. 16, she left the USPS facility but went back to look for her cellphone, a federal agent wrote in an affidavit.
When she could not find her phone with the help of her supervisor, she accused her co-workers of stealing it, the affidavit says.
According to the filing, Brickhouse then knocked down a garbage can and declared to her supervisor: 'I'm gonna go postal.'
The postal inspector investigating Brickhouse wrote in the affidavit that 'this phrase has been used to refer to a series of incidents where Postal workers shot and killed their supervisors, co-workers, police, and the general public.'
After the comment, Brickhouse was accused of knocking off an array of items from her supervisor's desk, including an iPad, binders and keys.
She also 'personally insulted her supervisors and coworkers and taunted them to call the police,' prosecutors said.
Brickhouse then grabbed the keys to a USPS vehicle in the parking lot, got inside and drove into another USPS vehicle, causing it to hit a third vehicle, according to prosecutors.
Following the crash, Brickhouse smashed a driver-side window with her metal water bottle, prosecutors said.
In total, she caused $42,376.95 in damage to the three USPS vehicles, according to a statement of facts.
Prosecutors argued that Brickhouse's actions were 'willful, intentional, knowing, and deliberate, and were not committed by mistake, accident, or other innocent reason.'
Her sentencing is set for Oct. 16, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office.
