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.
A USPS mail carrier was robbed in a normally-quiet San Francisco neighborhood Friday. https://t.co/ZfEwLjjiAC
— NBC Bay Area (@nbcbayarea) August 1, 2023
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
