Dallas letter carriers robbed amid safety concerns and calls for better protection
Within the last 15 days, three United States Postal Service letter carriers have been robbed while on the job in the Dallas area.
It has letter carriers and postal police officers accusing the government of not doing enough to improve safety.
We have reported extensively about violent attacks on letter carriers over the past few years.
The U.S. Postal Service launched an initiative called Project Safe Delivery two years ago in an effort to protect mail and those who deliver it.
But three robberies in just over two weeks have some of them saying it's not working.
The latest robbery happened in Northeast Dallas last Saturday.
That's when an arrow key was stolen, which can open any locked mailboxes in the zip code of 75243, where it was taken.
The arrow key is a master key carried by postal workers that opens most public collection boxes and community mailboxes.
Two more letter carriers were robbed on May 20 and 21.
Robbers are after mail, which postal police officers say can be a treasure for thieves of checks, cash and personal information.
Veteran letter carrier Keandre Glover works right next to the neighborhood where the latest robbery occurred. He said there's really no way he and his coworkers can protect themselves.
"I got dog mace and a dog horn, that's about all I have," said Glover. "But there's nothing out here protecting us from those people wanting our keys."
"This is just getting worse and worse and worse," said Frank Albrego, with the Postal Police Officers Association. "Check fraud is out of control. It's out of control and nobody is doing much about it."
Abrego has been calling on USPS management to let them escort mail carriers in high-risk areas.
"Postal police officers who are specifically trained to stop mail theft are sitting around in buildings instead of guarding the mail, or protecting letter carriers," Abergo said. "And what's happening right now in Dallas is that letter carriers are being robbed."
So far, Glover has avoided becoming a victim but is asking postal service administrators to devote more resources to keeping letter carriers safe.
"They get to go home to their families," said Glover. "So why can't we?"
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And some reproductive law experts say it's probably not a good idea to call the police when it happens. 'It's always a mistake to invite law enforcement into your reproductive life,' said Kim Mutcherson, a professor of law at Rutgers Law School who specializes in reproductive justice. Calling police could prompt an unwanted investigation, she says. 'If they then decide, 'no, it actually wasn't a miscarriage, this was somebody who took pills,' or whatever sort of thing that they want to conjure up, then all of a sudden it goes from 'here's this poor woman who had a miscarriage' to 'here's a person who we're going to start to prosecute,' ' Mutcherson said. 'I understand the idea that caution is better than being caught up in something that you weren't anticipating, but it is difficult for me to imagine any circumstance in which I would think it was safe for someone who miscarried to call the police,' she added. 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