The Postal Service is seeing a significant increase in letter carrier robberies and mail theft, but the union representing its shrinking police force says the agency is preventing them from protecting carriers on delivery routes.
USPS and the Postal Police Officers Association (PPOA) have been locked in a protracted legal battle for years to determine what jurisdiction postal police officers have beyond USPS facilities.
That legal battle is about to enter a new stage before the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.
PPOA filed a federal lawsuit on Monday, calling on USPS to comply with a third-party arbitrator’s recent decision to throw out an August 2020 memo, which limited postal police to only carry out their duties on USPS property.