The United States Postal Service confirmed the thefts and robberies of the postal carriers.
The national president of the Postal Police Officers Association, Frank Albergo, reached out to WTOL after the story on Sept. 14 and said the Postal Service needs to do more to protect mail carriers.
In an email to WTOL 11, Albergo said, “Postal Police Officers (PPOs), for years, were conducting mail theft prevention and letter carrier protection patrols by using data to target specific zip codes where mail theft was most prevalent. Unsurprisingly, it was highly effective in preventing postal-related crime.”
But then on August 25, 2020, the Postal Service reinterpreted enabling statute in order to decrease postal police law enforcement jurisdiction thereby ending all postal police patrolling activities.”
USPS and the United States Postal Inspection Service announced expanded actions to protect postal employees in May 2023.