BALTIMORE — Tony Vaughn's favorite part about delivering mail is also what opens him up to danger when he's on the job.
"We're out in the community, we're part of the community. We take pride and sometimes personal ownership of these routes. We see kids grow up, and meet neighbors. And the neighbors look out for us," Vaughn said.
Right now, they could really use people looking out for them.
After serving as a carrier for almost 40 years, Vaughn is now the president of the National Association of Letter Carriers' local branch.
He's worried for his colleagues.
"Letter carriers are getting robbed at gunpoint. Some physically assaulted.Just this past Wednesday, a letter carrier was robbed of his vehicle, his personal items," Vaughn said.
The alarming trend started with thieves targeting mail inside the collection boxes. But now they're also targeting mail carriers themselves.
In last week's robbery -- both the truck and all USPS property was recovered, and the letter carrier wasn't hurt, but not everyone is so lucky.
Take one example from New Jersey in May - video shows a postal worker getting chased through a yard and pushed to the ground.
"When you're out there, you're just out there trying to deliver the mail, do your job, go home to your families, but now have this concern of, am I going to get robbed," Vaughn asked.
Congressman Kweisi Mfume recently met with the Postal Police Officers Association, and he was disturbed by what he learned.
He says many of the thieves are after a specific set of keys, called arrow keys, that provide access to collection boxes in an entire zip code.
Once inside, they can find things like checks and money orders.
"If we're able to get the arrow key to get into these multi-mailbox units, our take goes up, or our chance to make more money goes up. So it's a very sick psychology that the criminals are using. But we're gonna get them and the postal police are very much determined to do that," Congressman Mfume said.
Vaughn is always telling carriers to keep their heads on a swivel and to leave an area whenever they feel safe.
But he also wants justice.
"It is a federal offense, and we want arrests and prosecutions,"Vaughn said.
The USPS says it can confirm a recent increase in mail theft complaints and robberies of USPS employees and is working to combat the problem and prosecute these thieves.
But there are things you can do to reduce mail theft – most importantly, don't let your mail pile up. Also, report stolen mail to the postal inspection service right away, so it can identify any local patterns and deploy resources to areas that need it most.
Congressman Mfume is also co-sponsoring this legislation, called thePostal Police Reform Act.
It aims to give more leeway to postal police officers, who were previously restricted to doing their jobs only on post office premises, without prior approval. Lawmakers believe postal police officers should be able to perform their duties out on the street, where it's needed most.
