It’s the holiday season, which means delivery drivers will be scrambling to find Christmas presents with dangerous Grinches lurking about.
Recent robberies and carjackings against delivery drivers have focused on the threats they face as they handle hurried deliveries and gifts. Drivers for Amazon, FedEx and UPS have all been targeted over the past month.
The US Postal Service is also vulnerable, with attacks on postal workers increasing 231% in the past three years, according to the Postal Police Officers Association.
Per Postal Service data, 412 mail carriers were robbed in 2020. In just the first half of the year, 305 employee robberies were reported.
Armed robberies against mail carriers increased dramatically between 2018 and 2021, rising from 36 to 154 reported incidents, according to the United States Postal Inspection Service (USPIS).
Mail carriers and delivery drivers in Chicago, Cincinnati, Houston, Phoenix, San Francisco and other cities over the past two months have demanded safer conditions for delivery workers on their routes at “Enough is Enough” rallies through the National Letter Carriers Association.
X/Orange County Sheriff’s Office
Recently, US Postal Inspection Service National Public Information Officer Michael Martel told Fox News Digital that thieves have been after postal workers’ “arrow keys” — which can be used to open most mailboxes — after instructions on how to use them appeared widely online. .
Using those keys, he said, thieves can obtain financial documents such as Social Security checks to commit fraud, along with prescriptions and other valuables.
The key can reportedly command thousands of dollars on the black market.
ROBBERED WITH A SNAP: Horrifying video shows 2 brazen criminals robbing a deliveryman on 1/13. He was not injured. They have been caught, thanks to our crime analysts & robbery detectives. With 85 felony charges & 11 convictions in their history, we hope they stay locked up. pic.twitter.com/cSIoVt3pME
— Orange County Sheriff’s Office (@OrangeCoSheriff) January 26, 2023
In May of this year, Martel said, USPIS expanded the “Safe Delivery Project” program in view of the increase in mail robberies and thefts.
As part of the initiative, the agency installed more than 10,000 upgraded mail collection boxes with additional security features, Martel said, and 6,500 additional electronic locks.
Also since May, USPIS and law enforcement agencies across the country have made 109 arrests for robbery and over 530 arrests for mail theft.
X/Orange County Sheriff’s Office
“There is certainly an increased opportunity for mail theft to occur around the holiday season,” Martel said Thursday. “Postal Service and project safe delivery will continue through the holidays to keep America’s mail and our workers safe.”
On Tuesday, the agency arrested 20-year-old Devan Flax in connection with two armed robberies of USPS carriers in Chicago, the agency wrote in a press release.
The men robbed one mail carrier at gunpoint on Saturday, the agency said, then another on Tuesday.
After the arrest, two stolen postal keys and the firearm used in the robbery were seized. Flax is charged with two counts of armed robbery, one count of aggravated robbery and three counts of unlawful use of a weapon.
Martel said thieves also break into delivery trucks and roadside boxes for packages in transit.
Recently, an Amazon driver in New Haven, Connecticut, was held up by four carjackers — one armed — as he unloaded packages from his truck early Wednesday.
The gunman pointed his weapon at the driver and asked him to get into the truck. The man collected the packages in the vehicle, then fled the scene. The New Haven Police Department said the driver was shaken but not injured.
Two days earlier in Colorado, a FedEx driver was shot by a carjacker, the Denver Police Department told Fox News Digital.
Officers responded to the scene around 4:30 Monday afternoon and took the victim from the North Vine Street crime scene to the hospital where he was treated for non-life threatening injuries.
His stolen truck was later found on Garfield Street, police said.
Video taken from a nearby apartment showed the thief jumping out of the front of the van and running to the back where the door was already open. @ATL_SCOOP / X
“The case remains under investigation, including if anything was stolen from the vehicle,” the department’s public information officer wrote in an email Thursday. “No arrests were made.”
On Thanksgiving Day in Chicago, two gunmen robbed another FedEx driver in the Bucktown neighborhood around 10:43 a.m.
Both delivery drivers — a 32-year-old man and his 50-year-old partner — were reportedly directed down the street on North Honore Street. The two thieves then moved the packages in the truck to their own silver Infiniti SUV.
In an incident a day earlier, about six masked gunmen arrived in a black Jeep and hit a man in the back of the head with a gun on Chicago’s West Carroll Avenue, then fled the scene in the victim’s silver Infiniti SUV, police said.
The department is reportedly investigating whether the two incidents are related, CWB Chicago reported.
In response to the incident, a FedEx spokesperson told Fox News Digital that “security [its] team members and security [its] customer delivery” is their priority.
Several men allegedly used an unknown tool to open the security latch on the sealed back door of the truck and took many packages. FOX13 Memphis
“We have a rigorous safety and security program to ensure team members are safe and customer property is protected,” a representative for the company wrote in an email Wednesday.
Earlier this month, doorbell camera footage in Maryland captured the armed carjacking in broad daylight of a female UPS driver.
Glenarden’s attack on Elk Avenue happened around 2 p.m. on Nov. 10, according to the Prince George’s County Police Department.
The daylight robbery happened when a UPS driver was delivering a package around 2pm on November 9. FOX 5 Washington DC/YouTube
In the footage, the driver can be heard shouting that his brown truck was taken at gunpoint after he was mobbed by several suspects.
He can later be seen calling the police on his cell phone.
“They just pulled a gun on me,” a UPS driver is heard telling the dispatcher in a Ring doorbell recording obtained by FOX 5.
Over the past three years, attacks on postal workers delivering mail have increased by 231%.
Mail carriers have a right to feel safe on the job, and my law ensures that postal police can adequately protect mail carriers from real threats on their routes. https://t.co/alNBinGq3B
— Senator Dick Durbin (@SenatorDurbin) November 29, 2023
The neighbor whose camera captured the video said he initially thought a couple was fighting outside his home.
“It’s very rude, in the middle of the day,” the man told FOX 5. “Most houses have cameras, so to do that right in front of everybody’s house that has front-view cameras, it’s kind of disconcerting.”
“You hope things get better,” the neighbor continued. “Maybe it’s the climate, but it’s unfortunate – you have to be alert and watch your back.”
On Tuesday, Sens. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., and Susan Collins, R-Maine, introduced the Postal Police Reform Act with bipartisan support in response to the significant increase.
Currently, Postal Police Officers can only work on USPS property; The proposed legislation would allow them to operate and make arrests off-site.
“Our country has seen an unacceptable increase in postal crime, and due to current restrictions, Postal Police Officers are unable to perform their vital public safety duties,” Collins wrote in a press release. “By allowing Postal Police Officers to work beyond Postal Service property, this bipartisan legislation recognizes the urgent need to protect our mail carriers and better secure our entire postal system.”
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Source: thtrangdai.edu.vn/en/
