I feel a bond of service with the other carriers to keep it up, to keep working.” Letter carriers feel abandoned and scared An Oakland postal worker picks up mail at a corner mailbox. “Hopefully, they’ll catch more of these guys, so I don’t have to worry about this,” Murphy said. We need all resources put into this,” he said.īill Murphy, an Oakland mail carrier who has been robbed twice in the last year, including once by having a shotgun pointed at him, told us on Thursday that he feels hopeful that the legal authorities are working with local and national enforcement agencies to prevent more assaults. “There are way more crimes that are being committed. Local 1111’s Fletcher wants the federal government to ramp up arrests. Postal Inspector in Charge Rafael Nuñez said. The proceeds of this crime are not worth your freedom,” U.S. “To any copycats or wannabes out there who might consider robbing a postal worker, I ask you to consider the years you will face in federal prison, the price on your head, and that postal inspectors will not stop hunting you. He faces up to 15 years in federal prison. One Oakland resident, Derek Hopson, allegedly stole mail and keys this past June. Attorney’s Office in the Northern District of California announced in Oakland that it was charging 10 people in connection to robberies of letter carriers, including for possessing credit cards, fake USPS IDs, and counterfeit checks. According to the USPS, Oakland, San Francisco, and Sacramento are ground zero for armed robberies in the region.īut one common crime involves stealing postal workers’ keys, which can open doors inside apartment buildings and other businesses and access locked mailboxesĮarlier in the week, the U.S. On Thursday, more than 25 letter carriers stood on the steps of the Oakland Post Office and chanted, “Enough is Enough! Protect Our Letter Carriers!”Įileen Brown, a letter carrier in Suisun City who attended the meeting, said assaults happen at all hours, on various routes, and in different cities. “We have to get the message out that any assault on a letter carrier is intolerable and will be punished to the fullest extent of the law.” We serve our communities, and we have a right to be safe and protected,” said National Association of Letter Carriers president Brian Renfroe at a press conference Thursday night at the 13th Street Oakland Post Office. “No worker should live in fear while doing their job. They’re getting beat up,” Matt Norfleet, a U.S. This may have led criminals to target letter carriers for quick-money schemes. Some speculate that the reason there has been an increase in robberies is because of the growth in pandemic-era home deliveries of valuable goods and items, including personal paychecks to stay-at-home workers. The Oaklandside has previously reported on the rise of these violent assaults. “It’s an injustice that a letter carrier whose job is to come to work and serve the community, deliver the community’s mail, the medicine, the packages-we look after the senior citizens, now we have to severely observe our surroundings and maybe get the hell out of if something isn’t right,” Fletcher said.
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