Man Stabbed Post Office

Man Stabbed Post Office, Ray A. Young worked for the federal government for more than 30 years. He has fought throat cancer, losing his teeth and part of his jaw in the process. He has a college-age son and was seen as a friendly neighbor by those living in the tidy townhouses on Concerto Lane in the White Oak area of Montgomery County.

On Thursday, Young, 67, drove his Toyota Corolla to the U.S. Post Office three miles away in Colesville. He waited with the rest of the afternoon crowd. Then he thought he saw a man cutting in line.

In fact, the man had been directed away from the counter to finish his paperwork, then had been motioned back by a postal worker, according to Montgomery County police.

Precisely what happened next in the post office’s vestibule remains unclear. But the man told police that Young came up to complain, then started to yell and argue with him before pulling a four-inch knife out of his pocket and stabbing him over and over.

Witnesses watched as the men fought and a postal worker pepper-sprayed them both, authorities said.

Young then went to retrieve some sort of pole from his trunk — one witness thought it looked like a baseball bat — and headed back toward the man, police said. But bystanders shouted that they had called police, and Young turned around and drove away. Police detained him a short time later in a traffic stop.

Authorities charged Young with attempted murder, and on Friday he appeared by closed-circuit television in a Rockville courtroom, where a judge held him on a $500,000 bond. Young’s son wept afterward just outside the courtroom doors.

Police say Young stabbed the victim several times, wounding him in the chest, forearm, biceps, and shoulder. The man, who had worked at the District’s Department of Transportation, was hospitalized with serious but not life-threatening injuries.

Police said that at the post office, Young walked out to the vestibule, waited for the victim, then attacked him.