MIAMI-DADE COUNTY, Fla. – South Florida has been experiencing a troubling riding trend of mail theft.
Now the union representing the Postal Police is responding, saying they could help stop the issue if they were able to do their job.
It’s been a week since thieves ransacked over one hundred mailboxes in a Doral subdivision off of Northwest 107th Avenue and 82nd Street, and at last check, police have not been able to make an arrest.
This recent mass mail theft is part of a growing crime trend plaguing neighborhoods across South Florida.
The United States Postal Service does have a police force.
Frank Albergo is President of the National Postal Police Association.
“There has never been a greater need for postal police officers. We’re federal police officers, we carry firearms, we have ballistic helmets, ballistic shields,” Albergo said. “We’re highly trained, we specialize in mail theft prevention and the protection of postal employees.”
But since 2020, the Postal Police has not been patrolling mail boxes or going after thieves.
Albergo said instead they’ve been benched, restricted to only patrol places like post offices.
“And who’s suffering? Well it’s your postal customers who are having their mail stolen, having their bank accounts drained,” he said. “The postal service made this change after an interest arbitration hearing. It’s clearly cost related.”
A statement from the US Postal Service said, in part:
“Curtailing such use of PPOs was necessary to protect individual PPOs and the Postal Service more broadly from legal liability.”
The US Postal Service also said it’s postal inspectors are doing the job of patrolling and investigating mail thefts, but critics like the Postal Police Association says they clearly keep up with what they describe a mail theft epidemic.