{"id":37540,"date":"2025-03-08T11:34:16","date_gmt":"2025-03-08T16:34:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/?p=37540"},"modified":"2025-03-08T11:34:16","modified_gmt":"2025-03-08T16:34:16","slug":"vigil-held-at-usps-facility-after-postal-employee-fatally-shot-by-coworker","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/2025\/03\/08\/vigil-held-at-usps-facility-after-postal-employee-fatally-shot-by-coworker\/","title":{"rendered":"Vigil held at USPS facility after postal employee fatally shot by coworker"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/lONCMHu0KfM?si=KVQmDwQCVfa0DWGT\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><strong><em>Edward &#8220;Eki&#8221; Poloka died on March 4 after an altercation with another employee, according to police.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<div class=\"article__section article__section_type_text utility__text\">\n<p>TUKWILA, Wash. \u2014 3\/7\/25 &#8211; The family of Edward &#8220;Eki&#8221; Poloka held a vigil on Friday at the U.S. Postal Service distribution center in Tukwila, where investigators say <a href=\"https:\/\/www.king5.com\/article\/news\/community\/more-than-a-number\/family-remembers-usps-employee-killed-tukwila-distribution-center\/281-0220d919-93bb-487a-9d46-86f437c6fb4c\">Poloka was shot to death<\/a>\u00a0by a coworker on March 4.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"article__section article__section_type_text utility__text\">\n<p>Investigators say the gunman later died of a self-inflicted gunshot after being confronted by police in Seattle.<\/p>\n<div class=\"article__section article__section_type_text utility__text\">\n<p>&#8220;I&#8217;ve never stood in front of this many people, but I&#8217;m going to do it for my brother,&#8221; said Kilbella Poloka, the oldest of the victim&#8217;s six sisters. &#8220;He was my right hand in everything that I did.&#8221;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"article__section article__section_type_text utility__text\">\n<p>According to Tukwila police, there was a\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.king5.com\/article\/news\/crime\/one-person-shot-killed-at-usps-building-in-tukwila\/281-668f7a41-2fbc-42d3-bbd5-e1060da86093\">confrontation between the two employees<\/a>\u00a0prior to the suspect retrieving a gun.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"article__section article__section_type_text utility__text\">\n<p>In a previous statement, the USPS wrote, &#8220;During this sensitive time, our primary focus is on offering support to our employees. We are providing counseling and assistance to help them navigate through this experience.&#8221;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"article__section article__section_type_text utility__text\">\n<p>The facility&#8217;s manager offered condolences as he addressed the crowd at Friday&#8217;s vigil.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"article__section article__section_type_text utility__text\">\n<p>&#8220;When I would come and say hi, he always had that smile. A smile that would light up the whole dock. The energy he had would carry with him and to the whole team. He was a fantastic person,&#8221; said Len DeLeon. &#8220;We as the United States Postal Service are so proud to have benefited from his presence.&#8221; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.king5.com\/article\/news\/local\/vigil-usps-facility-tukwila-postal-worker-edward-poloka-shot-to-death-by-coworker\/281-5b4e387e-30b3-4ce7-a092-cb18c688d17e\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/Edward-Eki-Poloka.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-37526 size-medium\" src=\"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/Edward-Eki-Poloka-300x164.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"164\" srcset=\"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/Edward-Eki-Poloka-300x164.jpg 300w, https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/Edward-Eki-Poloka-570x311.jpg 570w, https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/Edward-Eki-Poloka.jpg 632w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Edward &#8220;Eki&#8221; Poloka died on March 4 after an altercation with another employee, according to police. TUKWILA, Wash. \u2014 3\/7\/25 &#8211; The family of Edward &#8220;Eki&#8221; Poloka held a vigil on Friday at the U.S. Postal Service distribution center in Tukwila, where investigators say Poloka was shot to death\u00a0by a coworker on March 4. Investigators [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":37527,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-37540","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-breaking","last_archivepost"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37540","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37540"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37540\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37541,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37540\/revisions\/37541"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37527"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37540"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37540"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37540"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}