LOS ANGELES () — Attacks on mail carriers can be brutal and even bloody at times. The attacks are often traumatic for the postal carriers – but they also have a huge impact on U.S. Postal Service customers.
There have been at least 516 attacks on postal carriers in California since 2023, according to U.S. Postal Inspection Service data obtained by Eyewitness News through federal records requests.
The city with the most attacks on postal carriers is Los Angeles, with 55 reported assaults or robberies on a mail carrier from January 2023 through December 2024. San Francisco ranked second with 52, Oakland ranked third with 46 and 11 attacks were reported in San Bernardino.
Often these mail carriers are attacked for their universal keys – also called arrow keys – that open cluster mailboxes often found at apartment buildings, industrial complexes and HOAs.
7’s investigative team obtained data that shows 447 arrow keys were reported missing or stolen in California last year. In 2023, 392 arrow keys were reported gone.
Those arrow keys are often sold on the dark web to mail thieves who can easily snatch mail when they have that piece of hardware that’s supposed to only be in the hands of a USPS employee.
In L.A. County last year, 7,509 complaints of missing or stolen mail were reported to postal police, according to data from the Postal Inspection Service.
The L.A. County zip code with the most complaints of missing or stolen mail is Bellflower’s 90706.
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