Story and video By Michelle Baker
Since 2020, there have been over 2,000 reported cases of assaults, robberies and even murders against mail carriers across the country. On Monday, mail carriers from across the country gathered in downtown Reno to raise awareness about the harms that these workers face.
Around 150 people rallied at the Believe sign at City Plaza in support of the Protect Our Letter Carriers Act, a bipartisan bill that would invest in postal service infrastructure, increase prosecution rates and implement harsher sentences for those who assault postal carriers. Rural and urban mail carriers from across the country were able to join the local rally because the 118th National Rural Letter Carriers’ Association convention is taking place in Reno this week.
Courtney Clark, a mail carrier who traveled from Fort Collins, Colorado, for the convention, said she and her coworkers live in fear of being robbed or worse every day.
“I know the city [carriers] are more of the face of the post office that you see, but rural carriers are out there too…it gets scary sometimes, you never know what could happen,” she said. 
The bill would provide $7 billion to upgrade infrastructure, and if passed, would be appropriated over five years. The upgrade would include the installation of high-security collection boxes, effectively eliminating the need for the highly sought after Arrow Key—a universal key that mail carriers use to open collection boxes—and replaced by an electronic key that could be disabled if stolen. The bill would also implement harsher penalties for those who assault or rob mail carriers.
“We had a carrier in San Francisco, [who was] robbed at gunpoint. They captured the assailant—the criminal only got 30 days,” the President of the National Rural Letter Carriers’ Association, Donald Maston, said. “It used to be that if you assaulted a federal employee, the penalties were greater, so we’re trying to get that through as well.”
Maston said the NRLCA is actively educating communities about the dangers that mail carriers face. The union is looking for more congressional cosponsors across the country and has reached out to Rep. Mark Amodei (R-Nev.) to join the rally to support the letter carriers.
“We plead for congressional Representative Mark Amodei to sign on, cosponsor this bill, so we can thank him,” Maston said. “He can be part of the solution and protect our letter carriers that are in harm’s way every single day, just simply doing their job of delivering the mail.”
Rep. Amodei has shown support for U.S. Postal Service operations in the past, fighting alongside Nevada’s Democratic senators to override a plan to move mail processing operations to Sacramento.
