USPS issues (1 Viewer)

[krafticus]

Not the kind of issue you could imagine, for sure.

From the "you can't make this shit up" ...

I'm talking with my wife on my way home; she is home looking out the front window. She notices a black SUV driving through our cul de sac with the window down in a Howard County police uniform. He continues on, but then a marked car comes in, makes it to the cul de sac, and backs up. Seems he is going to the side street he passed.

We mentioned that we don't have any "bad" neighbors, but there has been a wave of stolen packages off of door steps in our area.

As I drive by, I mention that all I see is the mail truck on that street, but nothing abnormal. I walk in the door, start to talk to my wife, and she gets a text from a neighbor on that street.

The police arrested the mail man mid delivery. He was begging to the officer to let him finish his route before he took him away. I guess the officer didn't agree, and off he went. So, now, the mail truck is just sitting there on the street... really.. you can't make this up..

 

[krafticus]

And no, my mail has not been delivered yet...

 

[moose]

What I see:

Brag:
[ ] low crime area
[x] no snow

 

[abby99]

And no, my mail has not been delivered yet...

Today is Self-Service Day.

 

[gopherblue]

I actually think there is some weird rule about this. He is a federal postal official and cannot leave his vehicle unsecured. I remember a weird case where the local law enforcement couldn't remove a postal carrier from their truck until someone from the post office arrived to secure the mail. I think the postal police are going to be pissed.

 

[luckbox]

rumage thru it and shake some of the packages...its a federal crime but what the hell you might find some saweeeeet chips

my money is on he fell behind on his child support payments...

 

[upNdown]

Not shocking. I've known some VERY sketchy people who have worked for the USPS. I'm not saying they don't do background checks, but maybe they just don't read them?

 

[DJ Mack]

I actually think there is some weird rule about this. He is a federal postal official and cannot leave his vehicle unsecured. I remember a weird case where the local law enforcement couldn't remove a postal carrier from their truck until someone from the post office arrived to secure the mail. I think the postal police are going to be pissed.

The obligation to secure the mail is on the postal worker. It's possible that the truck was locked while he was making his delivery or the officers locked it; postal workers leave their trucks unattended but locked on public streets all the time as they go walk a route. Postal workers are not per se privileged from arrest. It's only when the conduct for which they are arrested is directly related to their duties that there's problems. In my experience USPS is pretty quick to jump out and say that the worker was not acting withing the scope of their duties when they are legitimately accused of wrongdoing. Even stuff like speeding isn't privileged because while driving is part of their duties violating state and local traffic laws is not. Every couple of years a guy will cite a postal worker for causing an accident and there's always some initial "you can't do that" nastygram from a postal union lawyer but once it's obvious that we know USPS isn't going to back them they pay the ticket like anyone else.

It's also entirely possible that this arrest was made in conjunction with USPIS. There was a case in my department before my time where the detective bureau was working with the postal inspectors on stolen packages. Long story short it was eventually determined that a postal worker was stealing the packages pre-delivery and falsifying the delivery reports. The Inspectors got word that he was tipped off and was likely to bail before the end of his shift. Unfortunately for them the closest inspector was two hours away on another case. Locals can't arrest for federal offenses and vice versa but we knew the guy had a warrant for failing to appear on a traffic offense two counties over. Normally we'd probably ignore that, but we had a marked unit stop him for a traffic violation and then arrested him on the warrant. The idea was to slow walk him back to jail, taking time to secure the truck and all, and then take more time getting the other city to pick him up, allowing an inspector to get back into town and arrest him on the federal offenses. Funny enough the other city said "sure *wink* we'll come get him, but it'll be at least an hour before we'll have anyone available so if you can house him for two hours we'd appreciate it." All's well that ends well.