Chicago Mail Carriers Threaten to Stop Deliveries After Carrier Gets Shot

A United States Postal Service (USPS) worker leaves a postal facility in Chicago, Ill., on Aug. 15, 2019. Scott Olson/Getty Images

Letter carriers in Chicago may stop delivering mail to some areas after a carrier was shot while on the job.

A 24-year-old woman was shot on Sept. 10 while delivering mail on South Ellis Avenue on the South Side.

“She was on duty, delivering,” a Chicago police official told reporters about the shooting, adding that she did not appear to be the target of the shooter.

In addition, someone fired paintballs a day later at another letter carrier.

“That’s a traumatic experience, especially when you had a coworker shot the day before,” Mack Julion with National Association of Letter Carriers, Branch 11, told WLS-TV.

“It’s not funny, these are federal employees. Our members are at work trying to do their job, trying to support their families, trying to serve the community.”

U.S. Postal Service mail carrier Lizette Portugal finishes loading her truck amid the COVID-19 pandemic in El Paso, Texas, on April 30, 2020. Paul Ratje/AFP via Getty Images

Julion and letter carriers gathered for a vigil at the site of the shooting late last week. That’s where he said some carriers may not deliver mail.

“Any letter carrier that do not feel safe in any one of these communities; that they are not to deliver mail; and that the customers have to pick up their mail. ”We are not going to have another situation where a letter carrier is shot down," Julion told CBS Chicago.

“I would say a lot of our members are terrified,” Julion added to WLS-TV. “They are terrified this random violence, it can happen to them, too.”

The association didn’t respond to a request for more information.

The carrier was rushed to the hospital, where she was being treated for critical injuries.

A $50,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the shooter or shooters is being offered by the U.S. Postal Inspection Service.

The shooting was the second this year.

In March, a 47-year-old letter carrier was struck by gunfire in Brighton Park, on the Southwest Side, in the early afternoon, police said.

An arrest still hasn’t been made in that case, Silvia Carrier, a postal inspector, told The Epoch Times via email.

“At this time, the U.S. Postal Inspection Service is working with the Chicago Police Department and the investigation is developing,” she said.