A union representing postal police officers sued U.S. Postal Service on Monday to reinstate outside patrols, allowing them to protect workers from increasing attacks.
According to a lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court of the District of Columbia by the Postal Police Officers Association, the Postal Service issued a memo on Aug. 25, 2020, that directed managers to stop postal police officers from performing law enforcement activities anywhere but at buildings owned by the Postal Service.
Postal police officers work under the administrative control of the United States Postal Inspection Service, which is the law enforcement and security arm of the Postal Service. They investigate and prevent mail theft and mail tampering, as well as crimes against postal employees.
An arbitrator stepped in after the postal police union filed a grievance in September 2020 to reinstate the postal police officers' outside patrols. The arbitrator sided with the union. Despite this, the Postal Service upheld its decision to reduce the postal police powers.
Postal workers and mailboxes were targeted
Mail carriers have been robbed on routes for the keys to public mailboxes. Thieves are accused of carrying out check fraud from stolen mail.
In March of last year, the Hamilton County Sheriff's Office was investigating more than 40 cases of mail theft and thieves had taken more than $200,000 from Postal Sevice blue mailboxes.
Sheriff Charmaine McGuffey encouraged people to take their mail inside the post offices instead of using the mailboxes outside.
In January, the Postal Service offered cash rewards to find perpetrators of mail theft, including one of a mail carrier in Norwood, Enquirer media partner Fox19 reported.
The lawsuit says there were approximately 3,000 postal officers in the early 1980s. In October 2020 there were 425. Today, there are only 344 officers, a 28% reduction since the 2020 figure.
The Enquirer has reached out to a spokesperson for the U.S. Postal Service and the president of the Postal Police Officers Association and will update this story when responses are received.
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