Source: San Jose Mercury News (CA) Contact: http://www.sjmercury.com/ Pubdate: Tue, 14 Jul 1998 Author: AVIS THOMAS-LESTER Washington Post CRIME HALTS WHAT RAIN, SNOW CAN'T U.S. Postal Service Plagued By Violence Against Carriers WASHINGTON -- Doris Cox has a mailbox outside her Washington, D.C., apartment building, but for the last 42 days, she has been forced to ride a bus several miles to pick up her bills and other correspondence. Cox is among at least 20 families in the Lincoln Heights public housing complex in Washington whose mail delivery service was suspended last month by the U.S. Postal Service. The Postal Service temporarily stopped mail delivery June 1 after suspected drug dealers who used a cluster mailbox to stash their drugs threatened violence against a mail carrier trying to fill the boxes with correspondence, authorities said. ``This is very inconvenient for me,'' Cox said. ``It's too far to walk. I have to ride the bus there and ride it back. It's 10 or 15 minutes there and back. I have to take the time to go quite a distance away to get my mail, when they are supposed to bring it here. . . . I don't know why they didn't call the police to escort the mailman or have the police do something instead of just stopping the delivery.'' The U.S. Postal Service's unofficial slogan vows that ``neither snow, nor rain, nor heat, nor gloom of night'' shall stop the delivery of mail, but increasingly, violence against Postal Service carriers is doing just that. Mail service in neighborhoods in Los Angeles, Atlanta and Chicago has been halted because of threats or assaults against Postal Service employees, authorities said. Violence against postal carriers is not new, but it appears to be on the rise, authorities said. According to figures from the Postal Service, 526 assaults or serious threats were reported against Postal Service employees in fiscal 1997. ``Most of those were committed by non-employees against Postal Service employees,'' said Postal Service spokesman Roy Betts. Among those incidents: - - A postmaster in Paterson, N.J., ordered a letter carrier to stop delivering mail to 20 families in an apartment building after hypodermic needles were found in a mailbox. - - A Milwaukee letter carrier was shot in the arm with a pellet gun. - - Los Angeles County sheriff's deputies began escorting postal carriers after three mail carriers were threatened by gang members. - - Mail delivery to six high-rise apartment buildings in Chicago was suspended for a day because of postal carriers' concerns about shootings while they were making their rounds. - - In Washington, violence against postal carriers was brought to the forefront in June 1996, when mail carrier Mun Hon Kim, 48, was fatally shot as he sat in his delivery truck eating his lunch. A 17-year-old was charged in the attack, and the youth, now 19, pleaded guilty to second-degree murder last month. Concern about postal carriers' welfare has led to the adoption of several unorthodox safety practices. In some cities, including New York and New Orleans, postal inspectors, the Postal Service's police, arm themselves with 9mm handguns and patrol some neighborhoods to protect carriers. In other places, carriers have cellular phones to summon help in an emergency. In Los Angeles, some carriers refuse to work on days when welfare and Social Security checks are delivered, for fear they could be robbed. Bil Paul, a spokesman for the U.S. Postal Service, said the Bay Area is not noted for threats of violence against letter carriers. ``As a general policy, we do not send carriers to places where there is a threat to their safety,'' he said. Mail was halted in Antioch during a hostage standoff there a few days ago, Paul said. Mercury News Staff Writer Mary Louise Schumacher contributed to this report. - ---