The post office, which stands between a self-service car wash and a coin-operated laundry called Mom’s in this town of about 1,200 people, often has residents coming in to pick up their mail. Home delivery is not provided in Henning, some 45 miles northeast of Memphis.
Around midday, plainclothes investigators were scanning the area along a railroad track that sits behind the post office. Lines of yellow police tape kept the gathering crowd away from the building. Crime scene investigation trucks were parked outside, including one from the Tennessee Department of Investigation.
Yulanda Burns, an inspector with the US Postal Inspection Service in Atlanta, said it was too early to determine a motive.
The FBI was also helping the postal service investigate.
Tony Burns, a state employee at the Tennessee Capitol in Nashville, said his sister-in-law is a postal service worker who was assigned to the Henning office yesterday. She told him that the shooting happened during a robbery attempt, but that she escaped unharmed.
Standing on a street corner near the post office, city resident Emmitt Hennings, a 71-year-old retiree, said it was hard to comprehend what happened.
“I just couldn’t believe it, not in this town,’’ Hennings said. “It’s too quiet.’’
The post office is less than a half-mile away from the museum dedicated to the “Roots’’ author Haley, who died in 1992. The 1976 book won a Pulitzer Prize and was the basis for a top-rated TV series.
