YOUNGSTOWN
The friendly, neighborhood mail carrier is a routine fixture in virtually every American neighborhood, but Tuesday was anything but routine for one postal employee on the city’s South Side.
The carrier was delivering mail in the 100 block of East Judson Avenue shortly before 2 p.m. and was walking past a set of vacant houses when two people, who appeared to be juveniles, came from inside or the rear of one of the empty buildings.
One of the juveniles put something that felt like a gun to the postman’s back while saying he did not believe the postal worker to be a “real mailman.” Both juveniles went through the victim’s pockets and mailbag, dumping its contents onto the ground.
The two thieves ran off with the keys to the U.S. Postal Service vehicle the carrier had been driving.
A resident living in the area later told the carrier and police he noticed two juveniles trying to enter the van, but he chased them away. The keys to the postal van were found in a nearby driveway and returned by another citizen.
David Van Allen, regional spokesman for the postal service, said the employee was shaken by the experience, but otherwise not injured. He said the teenage thieves did not manage to get away with any mail, postal property or personal property from the carrier.
Van Allen said postal carriers are instructed on safety measures, but those measures are not divulged to the public for the safety of the carriers.
“We ask if people do see something suspicious call the police,” he said. “This situation is still under investigation, and the [U.S.] postal inspector is involved.”
Van Allen said the culprits, if caught, likely will face state charges, but also could face additional felony charges because postal workers are federal employees.
Police Capt. Mark Milstead said he does not believe the postal worker was targeted. The robbery, he said, appears to have been a crime of opportunity.
“We haven’t seen a rash of postal employee robberies, so I don’t know that we have anyone targeting postal employees,” he said. “I don’t know that there is any incentive to rob a postal worker. They don’t carry any great amounts of cash. We really don’t know why they would do that other than a crime of opportunity.”
Milstead said the department has a description of the two thieves, but no specific suspects as of late Thursday. They are asking that anyone with information to contact the police department.
Comments
So glad I moved from the south side.
Who would rob a mail carrier? What lowlives!!! Our society has really sunken so low. Throw them in JJC and let them out the next day cuz they'rre lives are so hard etc. etc.
Well, let's start by looking at kids who were absent from school and live in the neighborhood.
On the Southside of Youngstown it not only the mailman that works in all sorts of weather.
They should put mail boxes in the vacant houses and let all the people go get their own mail with there carry and conceal permit and peice. Maybe a couple of shootings on federal property will wake up the residents of all the little gangsta and start coming forward with more information. They should remember one thing. They raised the little B's that are doing all the crime.
The Southside "kneejerks" are overdone . Just use Google & see mail carrier robberies happen all over . A neighbor prevented the mailvan being stolen. Look at the crime stats . Outside of the drug trade, folks are as safe on the Southside as most places in Youngstown.
lanacek is right!! It isn't just the Southside, it's the whole City of Youngstown that is unsafe. But it's not just the "drug trade", plenty of Innocent people are victims in Y-Town....
The whole southside is the safest areas in all of Youngstown.
Now the mail carriers need to be armed delivering mail in that cesspool! Nothing but animals.