Letter carrier robberies continue as the US Postal Service, union and lawmakers seek solutions

U.S. Postal Service trucks park outside a post office, Jan. 29, 2024, in Wheeling, Ill. The number of robberies of postal carriers grew again in 2023 and the number of injuries nearly doubled, even as the U.S. Postal Service launched crackdown aimed at addressing postal crime.The crackdown has led to hundreds of arrests, and robberies slowed toward the end of the year.

Postal carrier robberies climbed to 643 last year, an increase of nearly 30%, and the number of robberies resulting in injuries doubled to 61 last year, according to figures provided by the U.S. Postal Inspection Service in response to a Freedom of Information Act request by The Associated Press. Postal leaders and the letter carrier union were incensed when a federal judge in San Francisco last month sentenced a man who held a gun to a postal carrier’s head to just 30 days behind bars.

In addition to being traumatizing for letter carriers, Parker said the robberies represent a “threat to democracy” because in addition to envelopes containing personal checks, prescriptions and other important items, many now use the mail to send in ballots. Jeremiah Grant, a postal carrier in Oklahoma City, was held up in April 2022 by a man wearing a mask. He clambered to take off his thick leather belt to which his key was attached while a gun was being pointed at him. The gunman also snatched his cellphone and smashed it."I’m no longer a letter carrier. I’m a clerk, because I don’t feel safe going out there," Grant said. “It’s not a feeling that I can shake, and it’s been almost two years now.

“I believe they abandoned us. We are getting robbed of the keys and they’re not doing anything about it,” she said. “I feel like they don’t care.”

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