CRIME HALTS WHAT RAIN, SNOW CAN'T

U.S. Postal Service Plagued By Violence Against Carriers

WASHINGTON -- Doris Cox has a mailbox outside her Washington, D.C.,
apartment building, but for the last 42 days, she has been forced to ride a
bus several miles to pick up her bills and other correspondence.

Cox is among at least 20 families in the Lincoln Heights public housing
complex in Washington whose mail delivery service was suspended last month
by the U.S. Postal Service. The Postal Service temporarily stopped mail
delivery June 1 after suspected drug dealers who used a cluster mailbox to
stash their drugs threatened violence against a mail carrier trying to fill
the boxes with correspondence, authorities said.

``This is very inconvenient for me,'' Cox said. ``It's too far to walk. I
have to ride the bus there and ride it back. It's 10 or 15 minutes there
and back. I have to take the time to go quite a distance away to get my
mail, when they are supposed to bring it here. . . . I don't know why they
didn't call the police to escort the mailman or have the police do
something instead of just stopping the delivery.''

The U.S. Postal Service's unofficial slogan vows that ``neither snow, nor
rain, nor heat, nor gloom of night'' shall stop the delivery of mail, but
increasingly, violence against Postal Service carriers is doing just that.
Mail service in neighborhoods in Los Angeles, Atlanta and Chicago has been
halted because of threats or assaults against Postal Service employees,
authorities said.

Violence against postal carriers is not new, but it appears to be on the
rise, authorities said. According to figures from the Postal Service, 526
assaults or serious threats were reported against Postal Service employees
in fiscal 1997. ``Most of those were committed by non-employees against
Postal Service employees,'' said Postal Service spokesman Roy Betts.

Among those incidents:

- - A postmaster in Paterson, N.J., ordered a letter carrier to stop
delivering mail to 20 families in an apartment building after hypodermic
needles were found in a mailbox.

- - A Milwaukee letter carrier was shot in the arm with a pellet gun.

- - Los Angeles County sheriff's deputies began escorting postal carriers
after three mail carriers were threatened by gang members.

- - Mail delivery to six high-rise apartment buildings in Chicago was
suspended for a day because of postal carriers' concerns about shootings
while they were making their rounds.

- - In Washington, violence against postal carriers was brought to the
forefront in June 1996, when mail carrier Mun Hon Kim, 48, was fatally shot
as he sat in his delivery truck eating his lunch. A 17-year-old was charged
in the attack, and the youth, now 19, pleaded guilty to second-degree
murder last month.

Concern about postal carriers' welfare has led to the adoption of several
unorthodox safety practices. In some cities, including New York and New
Orleans, postal inspectors, the Postal Service's police, arm themselves
with 9mm handguns and patrol some neighborhoods to protect carriers. In
other places, carriers have cellular phones to summon help in an emergency.
In Los Angeles, some carriers refuse to work on days when welfare and
Social Security checks are delivered, for fear they could be robbed.

Bil Paul, a spokesman for the U.S. Postal Service, said the Bay Area is not
noted for threats of violence against letter carriers.

``As a general policy, we do not send carriers to places where there is a
threat to their safety,'' he said.

Mail was halted in Antioch during a hostage standoff there a few days ago,
Paul said.

Mercury News Staff Writer Mary Louise Schumacher contributed to this report.