United States Postal Service workers who deliver mail on Chicago’s south and west sides are threatening to halt service to select neighborhoods after a mail carrier was shot while on the job in the city’s Burnside neighborhood.
“The 24-year-old woman, who works as a United States Postal Service mail carrier, was shot at 91st Street and Ellis Avenue just after 11:35 a.m. while on the job,” ABC 7 Chicago reported earlier in September. “Chicago Fire Department officials said she was critically hurt after being shot multiple times.” The mail carrier was not the shooting’s intended target, Chicago police officials said, but her southside route put her in the middle of a neighborhood wracked by gun violence. She is, ABC 7 added, the second mail carrier wounded by gunfire while walking her route: “In March, another Chicago letter carrier was shot while delivering mail in Brighton Park. He was caught in gang crossfire and told ABC7 he feels fortunate he was not more seriously injured from a shot to the back of his head.”
The fact that attacking a mail carrier is a federal offense doesn't appear to deter the gang-bang types. This latest victim is still in serious condition in a hospital. As for the USPS threat to halt delivery service in such areas, it seems doubtful that the gangsters are going to be all that concerned over it. Heck, can people in these neighborhoods even read the mail?
“Mack Julion with National Association of Letter Carriers, Branch 11 said letter carriers should not walk their route if they feel unsafe,” WBBM added. “Any letter carrier who does not feel safe in any one of these communities then they are not to deliver mail and customers have to pick up their mail,” Julion said. “We are not going to have another situation where the letter carrier is shot down.”
This weekend, at least 30 people have been shot and 2 killed in a series of incidents on the city’s south and west sides, Chicago’s ABC 7 reported Sunday. Those incidents, CBS 2 Chicago adds, include two “mass shootings” that took place within an hour of each other in the city’s West Pullman neighborhood.
Just another Chicago weekend....
Of course, we have our own problems here in Oregon:
At least six men in Oregon have been accused of intentionally setting blazes during the state’s devastating wildfire season, according to a report. There is no evidence that the suspects were motivated by politics, despite conspiracies that such an animus has fueled the fires that have burned more than a million acres, OregonLive reported.
The number of dead remains unknown at present, although several bodies have been recovered so far.
