A Michigan man is accused of attacking a Black postal worker with a knife because he was furious about receiving political mail adverts for Kamala Harris.
Prosecutors in Farmington Hills, a suburb of Detroit, charged 61-year-old Russell Frank Valleau on Friday with assault and ethnic intimidation, the latter of which carries a maximum penalty of two years in prison.
Valleau was reportedly arrested the previous evening after hurling racial abuse at a US Postal Service mail carrier and “lunging” at her with a blade, forcing her to fend him off with her service-issued pepper spray.
A statement from Oakland County prosecutor Karen McDonald alleged that this was not merely a case of a citizen tired of election season and the flood of flyers that comes with it.
“The defendant was allegedly upset that he had received mail regarding presidential candidate Kamala Harris, and allegedly said that he did not want that ‘black b**ch’ in his mailbox,” McDonald said.
“He then called the mail carrier a ‘black b**ch’, and threatened the carrier. The mail carrier used pepper spray to stop the defendant. When police arrived, the defendant was found nearby.”