• The San Francisco Fire Department rescued a person in the frigid water at Pier 9 Saturday morning around 8:30 am, and they were treated at the scene for non-life-threatening injuries. [KRON4]
• A 93-year-old man in Fremont turned himself in to police for fatally shooting his 86-year-old wife and provided reasoning for his motive, which hasn’t been released. [Chronicle]
• The family of Yolanda Ramirez, a 72-year-old East Bay woman who was killed in police custody in October after a dispute with her sister, has filed state and federal lawsuits demanding that the Brentwood Police Department release body cam footage of the incident. [KGO]

• A new state website called Delete Request and Opt-Out Platform launched Thursday, in which California residents can request the deletion of their personal data from over 500 data brokers that sell information such as browsing history and phone numbers. [NBC Bay Area]

San Mateo police arrested two suspects yesterday who were in possession of a U-Haul van containing stolen mail from over 100 residents from across the Bay Area, including social security and ID cards, as well as a stolen apartment complex mailbox.

KRON4 reports that police received a call at 1:00 am on Friday from an eye witness who reported seeing two people in masks breaking into an apartment complex mailbox.

Police were able to locate the suspects — identified as 38-year-old James Spearman of Antioch and 42-year-old Erika Martinez of San Francisco — and attempted to pull the van over, which fled onto northbound Highway 101.

The duo eventually stopped on Florida Street in San Francisco and attempted to escape on foot before being caught.

The suspects were booked into a San Mateo County jail on charges including identity theft, possession of stolen property, and drug possession.

Image: San Mateo Police Department

A 63-year-old woman who’s a postal carrier in Dublin was robbed of her mail keys and cellphone at gunpoint Monday afternoon by two masked suspects, and security camera footage has captured what appears to be the suspects’ vehicle.

The recent rash of postal carrier robberies continues, and may even be getting worse, as six mail delivery people have been robbed in the last month, according to the US Postal Inspection Service. KRON4 reports that the most recent of these was the armed robbery of a postal carrier in Dublin that happened at 4:30 pm Monday on Obispo Court. And as KTVU points out, the mail carrier who was robbed was a 63-year-old woman.

KTVU obtained security camera footage from a neighbor, which is seen in the segment above. The mail carrier is simply placing mail into a mailbox, when the masked suspects approach her from behind. One of them clearly places a gun to her head and demands her mail keys, then they force her to her mail vehicle to take her cellphone, and run off.

"Somebody came up behind me and ‘boom,’ just hit me ,and put a gun to my head," the mail carrier told KTVU. “He said, 'Give me your keys. You don't want to die, do you?' I go no, no, no. So I reached in, got my keys, and he goes, 'Where's your phone? You got two minutes.'"

That 63-year-old postal carrier says she was about a year and a half from retirement, and is currently taking a month off to process the trauma.

That said, a neighbor’s security camera footage captured what appears to be the suspects’ vehicle. It’s a blue sedan seen at the 2:22 mark of the video above. The US Postal Service is offering a $150,000 reward for information leading to an arrest and conviction in this case.

Anyone with information is asked to contact Dublin Police Sergeant Chris Haendel at (925) 833-6670.

Related: Outrage Grows Over Postal Carrier Robberies After Armed Robber Sentenced to Only 30 Days in Jail [SFist]

Image: Mail being delivered in a neighborhood (Getty Images)

Another robbery of a mail carrier happened in the Richmond District Friday afternoon, and it’s not just a Bay Area thing, as robberies of postal workers have nearly doubled nationwide over the last year.

It’s a headline that’s becoming all too common in the Bay Area, but robberies of postal workers are becoming a troubling national trend too. In April, we saw an SF mail carrier robbed of mail in an incident affecting recipients in the 94110 zip code. In May, a postal worker was robbed in Antioch, and that same month, an SF man was indicted for firing at least 15 gunshots at a mail carrier, and another postal worker was robbed in the Western Addition. Yet another of these incidents happened last week, as NBC Bay Area reports a postal worker was robbed in the Richmond District.

NBC Bay Area describes this robbery as a “targeted hit on a female carrier,” and says the robbery occurred Friday at noon on 26th Avenue. The report does not give more specific detail on the location, but does add that it affects the 94121 zip code. The thieves in these cases are usually after the mailbox master keys, which can gain access to apartment-building mailboxes or even residences.

“Mail thieves are criminals, they are dangerous. Every time we catch up with a mail thief, they are armed,” Matthew Norfleet of the U.S. Postal Service’s law enforcement branch U.S. Postal Inspection Service told NBC Bay Area.

The station adds that there are currently dozens of investigations ongoing into postal-carrier robberies in the Bay Area. But it’s a national problem too, as NBC Bay Area reports that “According to U.S. postal inspector data provided to the Associated Press, postal-carrier robberies nationwide jumped 78% last year to nearly 500.”

Anyone with information is asked to call the U.S.  Postal Inspection Service at (877) 876-2455 and say “Law enforcement.” If you witness a mail-carrier robbery, the office advises you to “Take no action to apprehend these persons yourself.”

Related: US Postal Service Offering $50,000 Reward For Information On Suspect Who Robbed Mail Carrier [SFist]

Image: Trinity Nguyen via Unsplash

This suspect in a bright orange Warriors jacket stands accused of robbing a mail carrier of their postal keys, and the U.S. Postal Service is offering $50,000 for information leading to the suspect’s arrest.

Robbing mail carriers is becoming a thing in the Bay Area, most recently with April’s robbery of a mail carrier putting 94110 zip code residents’ mail at risk; and also that month, an SF man allegedly fired at least 15 gunshots at a postal carrier. The latest incident involves a mail carrier who was robbed in the Western Addition last week, and KRON4 reports the U.S.  Postal Inspection Service is offering a $50,000 reward for information leading to the suspect’s capture.

The theft took place last Thursday, May 24, at 11:20 a.m. at Lyon and Turk Streets. The suspect, seen above, is wearing an orange jacket with what appears to be a Warriors logo on the back, has a patterned ski mask on, and was riding a black scooter.

At the time of the incident, the SF Standard reported the the suspect robbed the carrier of their mail keys. The suspect threatened the carrier with “a Taser-like weapon,” according to the Standard, then fled on the scooter south toward the Panhandle.

"We are seeing robberies and we've had an increase across the Bay Area," Oakland-based postal inspector Jeff Fitch recently told KPIX. "We've had a number of robberies in Oakland. We've had robberies in San Francisco."

Anyone with information is asked to call the U.S.  Postal Inspection Service at (877) 876-2455 and say “Law enforcement.” The office advises you to “Take no action to apprehend these persons yourself.”

Related: San Francisco Man Indicted on Felony Charges for Firing Gun at U.S. Postal Worker [SFist]

Image: US Postal Service

The postmaster general now claims he’s backing off his draconian postal service cutbacks, but Nancy Pelosi was in the Bayview Tuesday morning to vow she’ll keep pushing the envelope.

The U.S. Postal Service mail slowdowns and widely noticed removal of mailboxes are a pretty transparent Trump administration attempt to sabotage vote-by-mail efforts amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. But they’ve also caused Trump some pretty bad publicity over the collateral damage of late-arriving paychecks and delayed deliveries of medicine, which have affected liberals and conservatives equally across the country. So what seemed like a left-wing pet issue when Speaker Nancy Pelosi called the House back from recess yesterday to vote on prohibiting further postal cutbacks, has quickly become very bipartisan, and Trump’s hand-picked postmaster general appears to have blinked. The New York Times reports that Postmaster General Louis DeJoy has now suspended any further changes to post office procedures (or so he says, at least), and they will not eliminate overtime for mail carriers, cut back hours at post offices, or remove any more mailboxes.

“They felt the heat,” Pelosi told the Times, amidst calls for hearings in the Republican-led Senate, and a bipartisan slate of 22 attorneys general suing the Trump administration over the delays. “And that’s what we’re trying to do, make it too hot for them to handle.”  

But Pelosi brought the heat close to home too, as KPIX reports she spoke at the Bayview post office at Lane and Third Streets this morning, in an appearance you can watch below.

“It’s in the Constitution. The Constitution of the United States calls for the establishment of a postal service” Pelosi said, going on to cite both Ben Franklin and Abraham Lincoln’s work with the US Postal Service. “They’re trying to undo it. Why? Because they want to interfere with the election. But they’ve been after the post office for a while. Why? Because they want to privatize it, they don’t want to have to give workers the respect they should have.”

Other speakers at the Bayview events included letter carriers, someone who’s mailbox had been removed, and a veteran with epilepsy who depends on the postal service for medication. Bayview's supervisor Shamann Walton spoke too, though Pelosi referred to him as “Shamann Walker.”  

“We have, of course, a tyrant in the White House who’s trying cheat, who’s trying to to rob us of our constitutional rights; one to vote,” Sup. Walton said. “And now he’s playing dirty tricks and trying to rob us of our constitutional right to get our mail.”

It was brought up that postmaster general DeJoy had said he would suspend the changes, but Pelosi sounded skeptical. “I don’t frankly trust the postmaster general in what he said,” she told assembled reporters. “And if he’s sincere about it, it means the bully has backed off.”

Pelosi’s rhetorical delivery has of course lost a step (she’s 80 years old), but the speeches from regular folk who are being jobbed out of their mail deliveries were brutal and effective. Frankly, this is what the Democrats ought to be doing in their prepackaged livestream convention that resumes tonight — get veterans, sick people, and the elderly out there, and let them tell their heartbreaking stories about how slow mail is disrupting the hell out of their lives and health. These could really improve that honestly pretty crappy first hour of the convention broadcast, which last night, felt pretty mailed-in.

Related: Speaker Pelosi Calls Back House From Recess To Deal With Postal Service Crisis [SFist]

Image: Shamann Walton via Twitter

Stealing mail, in addition to being a federal offense, is just a plain old dick move. Stealing an entire mail truck, full of mail, the week before taxes are due, is so seriously messed up that we don't even know where to begin. But that's exactly what happened this past Saturday in Oakland, reports KRON4, and police are at a loss as to what happened to all the truck's contents.

What's more, investigators don't even know what mail was in the truck — and consequently aren't even sure who the victims are. In other words, if you live near where the truck was stolen (around 36th Avenue in Oakland — no cross street was provided), you may or may not be totally screwed.

“If anybody realizes, in the next week or two, if they get a credit card statement or a bank statement and any unusual activity, contact us immediately,” US Postal Inspector Jeff Fitch told KRON 4. “That is information that will lead us to the individuals.”

The truck was out for delivery, parked and locked, when it was stolen while the postal employee was doing her route on foot. Police eventually found the truck, but, you guessed it, all the mail was gone.

There's a $10,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of the individual or individuals behind the theft, and the crime is punishable by up to five years in a federal prison.

Related: Video: Thief Steals Child's Birthday Present, Gleefully Dances Away

It's not just the food movement that's "slow" in the Bay Area. Postal Service employees in San Francisco move far less mail every hour than is typical of a processing and distribution center, according to a report from the Office of the Inspector General at the United States Postal Service, all caused by solvable issues that waste as much as $21 million a year.

The report, released this week and flagged by the Washington Examiner, states that the San Francisco Processing and Distribution Center "did not attain the efficiency achieved by similarly sized P&DCs." During 2013 "the San Francisco P&DC processed mail at a rate of 795 pieces per workhour, whereas the similarly sized P&DC at the median productivity level processed mail at the rate of 1,054 pieces per workhour. Accordingly, the San Francisco P&DC processed 259 fewer pieces per workhour than the comparable P&DC."

Why you do this, San Francisco mail? The report has a few answers: little processing occurred per hour "because management did not adjust workhours to workload, analyze operational efficiency through benchmarking, adequately supervise employees, or fully utilize automation equipment. Consequently, the facility was using more workhours than necessary to process mail volume."

At the same time, there's less and less mail overall being processed in SF, where last year our facility handled about 1.41 billion pieces of mail, a decrease of 8.6 percent from 2012.

According to The Office of the Inspector General, "We identified specific mail processing functional areas that could be more efficient, resulting in 486,781 fewer workhours and an annual cost avoidance of over $21 million."

In 2013 the postal service reported a loss of about $5 billion, so would $21 million in savings right here in San Francisco help? It sure couldn't hurt.

However, it's worth noting that the savings come at a cost: 280 jobs, to be exact. According to the Inspector General, "To save the recommended 486,781 workhours, the P&DC needs about 280 fewer employees." Is San Francisco's post office ready and willing to lay off 280 people? We won't be holding our breath.

You may recall last fall that we reported on the ever-dwindling number of corner mailboxes as the USPS slowly becomes obsolete, with over 800 having been removed in the past few years in San Francisco alone. Now the postal service is selling off whole post offices in the Bay Area, with eight currently on the market and more to come. So far, only one large S.F. post office is for sale, and that's the 10,000-square-foot North Beach Annex at 2200 Powell Street. But it won't stop there.

Several more San Francisco post offices are being "studied" by the USPS to determine if they will be closed. These include the Civic Center Post-Office box unit at Hyde and Golden Gate, McLaren Station (94134), Visitacion Station (94134), and Bayview Station (94124). (See the full list of "access study" stations here.)

We're not sure much can be done about any of these except, perhaps, writing a letter to Nancy Pelosi. Good luck with that.

[Business Times]

One very visible symbol of the shift from snail mail to email and all forms of electronic communication: Those blue mail boxes are disappearing! San Francisco's lost about 800 in the last couple of years, and dozens more are slated to disappear. Across the country, the USPS has killed off 60% of the boxes, bringing the total down to 160,000, down from 400,000 in 1985.

The postal workers are actually counting the number of pieces of mail going into boxes over a six to eight week period, and if it averages less than 25 pieces of mail a day, the box gets slated for removal. "To be honest, we don't get a lot of complaints," says a spokesman for the postal service in San Francisco. And we're sure those complaints come from old ladies.

But anyhow, the decline in use of the mails started way before the internet -- when more women went to work in the 1970s, and long-distance calls became cheaper, letter writing declined, and the culling of boxes began.

[Chron]