Postal Worker Shoots Ex-Wife, Kills Himself Also Shoots Ex-Wife’s Friend As Others Watch In Post Office

A postal worker shot and critically injured his former wife and a friend on Tuesday as they were standing in line inside a crowded post office, then went outside and shot and killed himself, the police and witnesses said.

One witness, Judith Rivas, was standing next to the two women in a line of 15 to 20 people. One of them said, “‘Why aren’t they moving faster? This service is no good,”’ Rivas said. “Then I saw him walk up to her and shoot her twice. Everybody hit the floor or ran outside. I just froze, and then I ran out.”

The police said that the postal worker, Jesus Antonio Tamayo, 64, who had worked for the post office for 21 years, was working alone helping customers just after 1 p.m. When he saw his former wife, Manuela Acosta, 62, he went to his car and returned with a gun. Then he shot Acosta and her roommate, Mirna Mendoza, 55. Both women were shot in the abdomen.

A police spokesman, Bobby Hernandez, said that Tamayo apparently went outside as soon as he saw the women come in.

“Then he came back in through the front doors and shot them,” Hernandez said.

After firing one shot at each woman, Hernandez said, Tamayo “exited the post office, went to a tree, looked up in the air and shot himself in the face.”

Customers and other postal employees ran out of the post office screaming for help.

A woman who lives nearby, Amy Reed, was parking her truck at the time. “I took a step toward the post office and then I heard a gunshot,” Reed said. “I saw a lot of postal workers and people running away from the post office and so I ran too. That shot was him killing himself.”

Tamayo was pronounced dead at the scene.

Fire rescue personnel happened to be across the street at the time of the shooting and Acosta and Mendoza were taken to the trauma center at Jackson Memorial Hospital, where they underwent emergency surgery. Both were in critical but stable condition.

“We have no idea what the motive was at this point,” a spokesman for the Miami Beach police, Detective Bernie Ruder, said. “We’re still talking to witnesses.”

Ruder said it was unclear what kind of problem Tamayo had with Acosta, from whom he had been divorced for at least 4-1/2 years. Television news reports here showed a relative of Acosta saying that she had gone to confront Tamayo about stealing her mail.