A masked man armed with what looked like a gun robbed a Denver mail carrier at gunpoint Friday morning, and now the U.S. Postal Service is offering $150,000 for information that leads to an arrest and conviction. The confrontation happened around 9:45 a.m. near Roslyn Street and 8th Place, according to postal officials.
The suspect was described as roughly 5-foot-5, dressed in a black mask, black jacket, blue jeans and black shoes, according to CBS News Colorado. Investigators said a possible firearm was tucked into his belt during the encounter. The station reported that the Postal Service is offering the six-figure reward for information that leads to the arrest and conviction of whoever is responsible.
How to Report a Tip
Anyone with information is asked to contact the U.S. Postal Inspection Service at 1-877-876-2455 or submit a report online, per the same report. No arrest has been announced, and it remains unclear what, if anything, was taken from the carrier during the robbery.
A Pattern Playing Out Across Colorado
This is not the first time a Colorado mail carrier has been targeted, and it is not the first time a six-figure reward has been attached to one of these cases. A separate robbery in Colorado Springs also drew a $150,000 reward from the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, according to KKTV. That robbery happened on a Saturday morning near Fountain Boulevard and South Circle Drive, where a carrier was putting mail into a community mailbox when a suspect got away with the carrier's keys. That suspect was described as a 6-foot-tall, slim Black male in his late teens or early 20s wearing a mask, a black hoodie and gray pants.
The Colorado State Association of Letter Carriers has pointed to a troubling nationwide trend behind these incidents. Its president said more than 2,000 city letter carriers have been robbed or assaulted across the country since 2019. Richard Byrne said the Denver metro area and Colorado Springs specifically have seen more than a 300% increase in assaults and robberies targeting letter carriers.
USPS Has Flagged the Rise Before
The trend has already caught the attention of postal officials themselves. A 2023 U.S. Postal Service audit report stated that carrier robberies and mail theft are on the rise nationwide, according to Newsweek. Denver has seen this play out before at the same corner of the map: a November 2023 notice from the U.S. Postal Inspection Service offered a reward of up to $50,000 in a separate Denver letter-carrier robbery, in which the suspect was described as a Hispanic male with dark hair and a goatee or possibly a beard who was seen driving away from the scene.
For now, investigators are relying on the public to help identify the man who approached Friday's carrier near Roslyn Street and 8th Place. With $150,000 on the table, postal inspectors are hoping someone with a tip decides it is worth making the call.
