USPS Suspends Mail to Santa Monica Block After Alleged Assaults on Carriers

The U.S. Postal Service (USPS) wrote to residents of a residential block in Santa Monica, California, notifying them that it was suspending service due to alleged assaults on mail carriers “from an individual who has not been located or apprehended.”

The Santa Monica Daily Mirror reported that residents had been told that while package delivery would continue, they would have to appear in person at the local post office to fetch their paper mail due to concerns about crime and safety.

The Mirror noted:

 “The USPS issued the letter and as far as we know did not contact our department before sending it. I tried calling the two phone numbers on the letter – one went unanswered, the other had a voicemail box that is full,” [Santa Monica Police Department] Lieutenant Aklufi said.

According to  Lieutenant Aklufi, the SMPD has a crime report of a suspect who assaulted a USPS carrier with a broomstick on January 19, 2022. The suspect is a resident of the area is known to the SMPD. This is the only such incident the SMPD says it is aware of on the block.

The block is about a mile inland from the beach and about half a mile from downtown Santa Monica, where there have been growing threats from homeless people in recent years, many of whom are mentally ill or suffering from drug addiction.

Unlike neighboring Los Angeles, Santa Monica enforces anti-camping ordinances, preventing the growth of the tent cities that have become ubiquitous in the nearby community of Venice and elsewhere in L.A. However, Santa Monica residents have reported increasing confrontations with homeless itinerants in the area, including unprovoked attacks and assaults. (This author was once struck in the chest at random by an apparently homeless individual in broad daylight several years ago.)

CBS News reported that residents are frustrated, but that USPS has continued to deliver packages to residents on the block.

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the recent e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. His recent book, RED NOVEMBER, tells the story of the 2020 Democratic presidential primary from a conservative perspective. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.