Former USPS mail carrier threatened to ‘shoot up’ post office if he didn’t get unemployment benefits: feds
A former U.S. Postal Service mail carrier with a violent past threatened to go postal and shoot several people if he didn’t get unemployment benefits, federal prosecutors allege.
Quadri Garnes, a registered sex offender from Brooklyn who served time for a 1994 attempted rape conviction, faces federal charges after he exploded over the phone Sept. 29 at two state Labor Department workers, threatening to shoot up a post office and kill several people.
Garnes, 46, used to work at the Homecrest Station post office in Brooklyn, according to a federal complaint, though it’s not clear how his job ended there. He called the Labor Department looking for benefits associated with that job, according to federal prosecutors.
“I can’t get what I worked for... so I have to go to the Post Office and shoot up the Post Office, right?” he said during the phone call, according to a criminal compliant, later asking, “Does the city want me to kill five or six people because I can’t pay the rent?”
He also threatened to shoot people outside the downtown Brooklyn office of the Department of Labor, prosecutors allege.
“Somebody might get shot today coming out of the Department of Labor,” he said, according to prosecutors.
Garnes said he knew his call was being recorded, according to the complaint.
“And I am putting this out there because I know this is recorded, because if I was to do something like that, at least when they start going through the records, they know why it it was done,” he’s accused of saying.
“Just remember my name. You might see it on TV tonight,” he continued, according to court papers.
Garnes has served three separate stints in state prison — including time for attempted rape and sexual abuse in 1994, attempted burglary in 1998 and attempted weapon possession in 2004.
He was also featured in a 2009 episode of the A&E reality series, “Manhunters: Fugitive Task Force,” which depicted a U.S. Marshals squad hunting him in Brooklyn and arresting him for violating his parole and failing to register as a sex offender.
“Carries guns, likes to fight cops. This guy does a little bit of everything, so he’s unpredictable,” the officers on the show say in one clip.
He was most recently released in 2012, after serving out the remainder of his three-year prison sentence for his 2004 weapon conviction.
Garnes, who was arrested Thursday, was ordered held without bail by a Brooklyn Federal Court magistrate judge Friday.
His lawyer declined comment Monday.
