Every minute and every day in the United States, someone is robbed. Not merely a simple heist but an armed robbery.
Mail carriers in Maryland and Washington, D.C., were robbed at least six times in two days, according to a report from the United States Postal Service (USPS).
Postal Inspection Service spokesperson Michael Martel called the trend “alarming” during a press conference. “It’s a terrible state of affairs when robbers target a person who performs a vital function for their community. There must be a stop to what is occurring here.”
The suspects are stealing personal property and “a wide variety of equipment that the postal service supplies their carriers to execute their tasks daily.” Still, Martel isn’t sure if they’ve taken any mail just yet, declining to elaborate on a possible motivation.
All six gunpoint robberies in the D.C. metro region were committed by suspects with a handgun. Two incidents involved violence and head or facial injuries to the carriers. Martel said that none of the pages were sent to the hospital and that their injuries were not severe enough to necessitate further medical attention.
There were four thefts of letter carriers for the United States Postal Service on Friday, just before the holiday weekend of July 4.
Friday’s first incident occurred at 10:10 am in Wheaton, Maryland. A suspect approached an unarmed letter carrier, displayed his weapon, and demanded items before speeding away in an unidentified black automobile, likely an Infiniti.
Another postal worker was threatened with a pistol by a suspect who allegedly demanded items and departed the area in a vehicle matching the same description about 20 minutes later, according to police. At 5-foot-6 to 5-foot-8 in height, the suspect was described as a black guy with an unusually high-pitched voice, likely in his early 20s, dressed in all black, with a black ski mask over his face.
It was at 11:24am on Friday when a postal worker was assaulted in Northwest Washington DC by a guy who demanded money from him and punched him in the jaw, police said.
The suspect took the stuff in a black Mercedes and fled the scene.
Around 1:30 p.m. the same day, a postal carrier in Columbia, Maryland, was confronted by a person with a handgun who demanded items.
The suspect in the case was characterized as a 5-foot-9, light-skinned black guy with a light complexion.
More robberies were reported today. In Takoma Park, Maryland, around 12:55 p.m., two suspects approached a postal mail carrier, brandishing weapons, demanding property, and assaulting the airline. A black vehicle was then driven away from the scene.
When two suspects approached a letter carrier in Northeast Washington, D.C., at 1:18 p.m. and flashed a pistol, they demanded items before departing the area, some two miles distant. According to authorities, the carrier was unchanged in this situation.
Both occurrences included two young, skinny Black guys who were 5-foot-8 to 5-foot-10 and wore ski masks, according to the police reports. In addition to his black and silver revolver, he wore an all-black hooded sweatshirt and a pair of trousers. A black sweatshirt and pants were reported as being worn by the second suspect. The two in a black vehicle are believed to have escaped the area.
Information leading to the arrest, identification, and conviction of those responsible might earn the source a prize of $50,000 or more. Postal Inspection Service’s dedication to letter carriers completing their rounds for us is reflected in this sum, which Martel described as “significant.”
Postal inspectors may be reached at 877-876-2455 for anyone with information, and a prize is available for anyone who can come forward with it.
In recent months and years, reports of robbery have been spreading in the press and have become a highly troublesome subject in the community. With all the terror-linked robberies in the neighborhood, there is a large number of interactions between victims and offenders when there is an armed robber, and property crime has limited encounters between the victims and the offenders.
