To counter a 200% increase in robberies of letter carriers in the last six years, federal lawmakers in March introduced new legislation at the request of the National Association of Letter Carriers (NALC) union.
The number of robberies reported to the U.S. Postal Inspection Service (postal police) rose from 140 in 2020 to 423 in 2022. Willie Groshell, a former president of the Oregon state branch of NALC who now works for the national union, said most of the cases involve an attempted theft of the carrier’s arrow key. Arrow keys provide access to all of the locked mailboxes located in one zip code — a valuable prize for a thief looking to steal packages, prescriptions, and Social Security checks inside those boxes.
“During the pandemic, knowledge got out about the keys,” Groshell said. “It used to be that people didn’t mess around with their letter carrier, because it’s a federal crime. It used to not be worth it.”
Groshell knows of at least three Portland letter carriers who were robbed at gunpoint in the last three years. One was robbed in broad daylight in a relatively busy neighborhood near Lloyd Center, he said. All three had their arrow keys taken from them, he said.
It is a federal crime to assault a postal worker, but the existing penalties can be relatively low, Groshell said. In one robbery case out of San Francisco, a man who held a letter carrier at gunpoint was sentenced to 30 days in jail, Groshell said.
And a penalty only applies if the case makes it to court. Postal police data show that as robberies doubled, the arrest rate dropped from about 36% in 2020 to 25% in 2022. The conviction rate also dropped from about 20% to 16%.
“It makes it so there is not a whole lot of deterrent,” Groshell said.
The Protect Our Letter Carriers Act (H.R. 7629) would provide $7 billion for the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) to install high-security mailboxes and switch out the arrow keys with more secure, electronic versions. The electronic keys could be deactivated as soon as the carrier reported it stolen, making them virtually useless for a thief, Groshell said. H.R. 7629 would also make the legal consequences of robbing or assaulting a letter carrier the same as assaulting a police officer, and designate U.S. attorneys in every district to prosecute those crimes.
“We are doing everything we can to make it so there is no value in this anymore,” Groshell said. “We don’t want people to have to go through the experience (of getting robbed) if we can prevent it.”
The act was introduced March 12 by Representative Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Penn.). It has 34 co-sponsors, including Andrea Salinas (D-Ore.) and Suzan DelBene (D-Wash.).
Postal police needed in the field, Wyden says
Last year, Senator Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) joined a bipartisan group of federal lawmakers to introduce another bill aimed at the steep increase of letter carrier robberies. The Postal Police Reform Act (S 3356) would allow managers to assign postal police officers to duty along mail routes. A 2020 directive, put in place under the leadership of Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, currently restricts those officers from leaving USPS property during their shifts. That means the postal police cannot respond immediately when a letter carrier calls to report a robbery, making it easier for the person to evade arrest. The House version of the Postal Police Reform Act (H.R. 3005) is co-sponsored by Oregon Democrat Val Hoyle and Washington Democrats Kim Schier, Pramila Jayapal, and Marie Gluesenkamp Perez. It is endorsed by the National Association of Postal Supervisors and the Postal Police Officers Association.
