N.Y. Postal Workers Under Threat from Increasing Number of Attacks

Safety at Work

Rochester, NY (WorkersCompensation.com) – Workers with UPS and the U.S. Postal Service are under continued threat, officials said, from attacks and injury.

Officials in Rochester, N.Y., said a woman has been accused of attacking a postal worker as they noted an “alarming uptick” in violent incidents. The Rochester Police Department said the woman was harassing the mail carrier around 1:45 p.m. on Sept. 25.

Police said the woman approached the letter carrier and claimed she needed to give him mail. After becoming aggravated, she demanded that he return the mail to her. She then continued to follow him and shot at him until she attempted to attack him with a glass bottle, and then with a kitchen knife.

The letter carrier fled to their truck for safety. When he did, the woman hit the truck with a bottle, police said. The letter carrier was not injured and was able to drive away and call the police. The suspect, 43, was arrested and is facing charges from a previous incident, the police said.

While the police don’t believe her actions are related to any other assaults on mail carriers, Rochester has seen five assaults on postal carriers in September alone.

Police said the attacks began on Sept. 5. Since then, five mail carriers have been robbed and assaulted. Representatives from the letter carrier’s union said the attacks are an unprecedented rise in violence against postal workers. Some of the mail carriers were robbed at gunpoint, Monique Mate, president of the National Association of Letter Carriers Branch 210, said. She has asked the public for help.

“If you see your mail carrier and a car behind them that is following them or watching them and the carrier doesn’t see it, say something,” Mate said. “There’s cameras everywhere. Somebody has a ring camera.”

Mate said she has never seen such an increase in attacks on letter carriers during her 30-year role as president.

On Sept. 5, a mail carrier was punched, and his bag was stolen, police said. Later, on Sept. 11, two carriers were robbed in separate incidents. And then on Sept. 12, another letter carrier was attacked in the morning. Another happened on Sept. 22, officials said.

Mate said the victims have suffered mentally, even after their physical injuries were healed. Now, Mate is pushing for passage of the Protect Our Letter Carriers Act and is calling on the public to report suspicious activity involving mail carriers.

“We’ve had assaults in the past, but nothing to the point of where it’s happening on a regular basis,” Mate said. The union is collaborating with the local postmaster, postal inspectors, and law enforcement, she said. “When these attacks are happening, what’s happening behind the scenes is they’re going door to door. They’re trying to find videos. They’re doing the investigation from what we’re being told, they’re following all leads.”

The union said postal inspectors have offered a reward for information on the attackers. In the past, reward amounts have been offered for us to $150,000 for an arrest, but in this situation, the exact reward is not known.

In an interview with WROC, a letter carrier who was a victim of one of the assaults. said they are afraid of going to work.

“I’m petrified to go back out and do my job,” the USPS employee said. “I fear, you know, fear for my life. I could have died yesterday. As I got home again, my kids and my wife hugged. I think the shock kind of wore off, and I’m very anxious (and) unsure of going back to work just because of the fear of that happening again…There’s no guarantee that that won’t happen again. You know, no matter if I move to a different station or whatever, there’s no guarantee that something like that couldn’t happen. You know, I don’t feel safe.”

He said being a letter carrier is not a job where one expects danger. He signed up for the job for the pension and to support his family.

“It’s not a job where you signed up for danger. You know, if you sign up for a job with inherent risks, then that’s something that you signed up for. I signed up to walk through people’s lawns,” he said. “Biggest hazard I expected was the occasional dog…But you encounter humans that are trying to harm a mail carrier for a key, or in my case, just random aggression.”

He said he also fears for other carriers as well.

“Whoever is working is just trying to provide for their family,” he said. “They don’t want to go to work and have to be afraid of being robbed or attacked.”

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