Man pulls gun on mail carrier in Gulfport, postal inspectors say
A man pointed a handgun at the head of postal carrier last week in Gulfport, and also allegedly shot a cable company employee.
These details come from an affidavit filed in federal court last week charging Rusty S. Holloway with assault of a federal employee.
Holloway, of Gulfport, was in U.S. District Court Monday to make his first court appearance and have a public defender assigned to him.
The incident with the postal carrier happened on Andy Drive about 12:45 p.m. Thursday, according to the affidavit from Postal Inspector Doug Wilson The street is in the former Orange Grove section of Gulfport, not far from Old U.S. 49 and Flat Branch Road.
The carrier was delivering mail when a man approached her truck, asking that mail for Rich or Richard Holloway be put in a postal box. The carrier said, “Yes, sir. No problem.” The man then pulled a .40 caliber handgun, put it one inch in front of the carrier’s forehead and said, “I said did you f---ing hear me?” After a minute, the man lowered the gun and the carrier drove away.
Seconds later, the carrier heard a gunshot and a bullet hit the back of her postal vehicle. The carrier told the postal inspector that she likely would have been hit in the head if it were not for a wall brace in the back of her truck, causing the bullet to deflect away.
In Wilson’s affidavit, he said Gulfport police also received a separate call that a Sparklight cable employee had been shot in the same neighborhood around the same time. A call to Sparklight’s corporate office on Monday was not returned.
In the affidavit, Wilson says Holloway admitted to the shooting and told Gulfport police that “you guys aren’t going to kill me today.”
Dwayne Martin, public information officer for this area’s postal inspectors, said the carrier thankfully was unharmed. “We have two main goals, protect employees and then protect the mail from misuse,” he said. “That takes precedence over anything else.”
Martin said there was no known motive for the incident with the postal carrier.
This story was originally published October 25, 2022 at 9:02 AM.