CONCORD, N.C. — Investigators are offering a $50,000 reward for information leading to an arrest after someone robbed a Concord letter carrier at gunpoint.
It’s the second time this month someone has robbed a letter carrier in our area. The latest case happened Friday morning, near the intersection of Blackberry Trail and Pokeberry Trail. The quiet neighborhood is near Poplar Tent Road in Concord.
Channel 9′s Dan Matics spoke with one neighbor who saw everything unfold. It was the barking of her dogs that let Lynn Baker know on Friday afternoon that something was off.
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“I really couldn’t believe it,” she said. “It was shocking.”
She looked out her window to see a man holding her letter carrier at gunpoint.
“I stayed in the house, figured I needed to call 911,” she said. “Then the guy just peeled off. I was like ‘hey are you OK? He was like no, I just got held up at gunpoint,’” she said.
Cabarrus County deputies told Matics they’re looking for a Black or Hispanic man in his late twenties. He’s described as 6 feet tall weighing more than 200 pounds. They said he got away in a silver Dodge Charger.
The U.S. Postal Inspection Service is offering a $50,000 reward for information leading to an arrest.
“When he said gunpoint, I was like ‘oh this is crazy.’ And when he said gunpoint, I knew it was more than mail, he said -- ‘no, he wanted my master keys,’” Baker said.
Witnesses said the robber got away with the mailman’s personal keys, the mail truck keys, and what investigators say he was likely looking for, the master key. The master key can open several mailboxes in the region.
The USPS says more than 400 letter carriers were robbed in 2022. It’s a huge spike.
Just last week in southwest Charlotte, a letter carrier was pepper sprayed and robbed. Detectives who Matics spoke with Monday said they have no idea if the cases could be connected.
Neighbors said the robbery put them on edge.
“The guy had a gun right there -- It’s just something you don’t think about,” Baker said. “Now we’ve got to get cameras, we’ve got to be more diligent.”
At the national level, there’s a push from lawmakers to allow postal police officers to go back into neighborhoods to protect letter carriers. Their union has been fighting to make that happen.
Since 2020, the postal service has only allowed those officers to patrol postal buildings. The USPS has said it’s working to prevent more thefts of master keys, also known as arrow keys, by replacing 49,000 locks with electric ones.
The U.S. Postal Service also said it’s installing 12,000 high-security mail collection boxes across the country.
(WATCH BELOW: USPS unveils plan to crack down on mail theft)
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