After letter carrier's slaying, coworkers say Postal Service is failing to deliver on safety

The brazen slaying of a letter carrier in Chicago last week has her fellow postal workers fuming.

Many gathered Monday to demand police find the killer of Octavia Redmond, a 48-year-old grandmother and wife to a letter carrier.

The letter carriers also criticized the United States Postal Service for not protecting them.

“We want to go home to our families. Unfortunately one of ours will not be going home. We've got a problem with that,” said Elise Foster, president of the National Association of Letter Carriers Branch 11, which represented Redmond.

Redmond was shot to death Friday as she delivered mail in the 12100 block of South Harvard in the West Pullman neighborhood.

Police haven’t released a motive.

A Chicago police report says video surveillance showed a gunman dressed in all black exit a car and shoot Redmond several times at close range before fleeing in the car.

Redmond had 26 gunshot wounds to her body, according to the police report. Officers found seven shell casings near her body.

Chicago police and the U.S. Postal Inspection Service did not have an update on the case Monday afternoon.

The U.S. Postal Inspection Service is offering a $250,000 reward for information on the case.

‘To know her was to love her’

Redmond was remembered Monday as a “nurturing mother and grandmother,” and wife to another letter carrier who “has lost the love of his life,” said letter carrier and union steward Adriane Frazier.

"To know her was to love her," Frazier said. “Now our heads are heavy and our hearts are weary of who will be next.”

Redmond’s husband, reached by phone, declined to speak to the Sun-Times.

Frazier asked for the public's help to find Redmond's killer.

“We are living in fear, and we need answers,” she said.

‘Lip service to carrier safety’

Redmond commuted from a high-rise in the South Loop to a post office on the Far South Side.

Redmond was the fourth regular carrier on her route in four years, Frazier said. Other carriers on the route had filed complaints about assaults in the past, Frazier said.

More than 140 letter carriers have been attacked on the job in Chicago since August 2022, Foster said.

Letter carriers have been the target of robberies and violence for years, most recently for their master keys that open all collection boxes. Criminals have been using those keys to steal mail and rewrite checks to themselves.

The Sun-Times reported on the pattern two years ago and the attempts by the USPS to address the problem.

“The Postal Service provides a lot of lip service to carrier safety,” said Luis Rivas Jr., president of the Illinois State Association of Letter Carriers.

Criminals know they can get away with the attacks, Rivas said. Only about 14% of people caught targeting letter carriers are prosecuted, he said.

USPS, in a statement, said the “safety and security of our postal employees is of the utmost importance.” The statement referred to USPS’ Project Safe Delivery, which included “law enforcement surges” in Chicago and other cities, the installation of higher-security blue collection boxes and the replacement of 49,000 locks with electronic locks to deter key thefts from letter carriers.

‘Protecting buildings … instead of blood and tears’

Foster and other union representatives demanded legislation in Congress to increase protections for postal employees.

One such measure is the Protect Our Letter Carriers Act, which Brian L. Renfroe, president of the national association, wrote would be a “comprehensive solution [to] deter these crimes from happening.”

American Postal Workers Union Local 1 President Keith Richardson on Monday called for a possible boycott of the Postal Service until it increases safety measures.

“How many times are we going to call on the Postal Service to beef up their patrols for postal police officers to protect our workers?” Richardson asked.

Critics say part of the issue is that postal inspection officers have not been allowed to leave station property since 2020, when Postmaster Louis DeJoy prohibited postal officers from carrier protection patrols.

U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin introduced a bill last year, the Postal Police Reform Act, to put postal police back on the streets.

Many postal officers want to return to protecting letter carriers, said Marlon Barber, a postal officer and a union rep for the Postal Police Officers Association.

“In 2020 some genius in the Inspection Service decided that we were better utilized protecting buildings — brick and mortar — instead of blood and tears. And we think it's ridiculous,” Barber said.