Postman Won’t Ring on Crime-Ridden Block

Worried about the welfare of a veteran mailman, the U.S. Postal Service has halted door-to-door mail delivery along a crime-infested block near downtown San Bernardino.

The action was taken after mail carrier Jim Mick was threatened and followed to his delivery truck by tenants of an apartment building where he had refused to deliver mail, residents in the affected area said.

“Those people over there threatened him and harassed him because he didn’t want to deliver mail at their place,” said Dorman Kelley, 50, one of about 40 residents whose home delivery was cut off. “I really don’t blame them for stopping the mail, considering this guy’s life might have been in danger.”

Mick was repeatedly threatened with harm by the tenants after he refused to leave letters in a mailbox that was falling off the wall of the run-down apartment building, Kelley said.

The affected homes--many of them old and dilapidated--are in the 1100 block of Mayfield Avenue. San Bernardino City Atty. James Penman described the block as “one of the city’s worst problem areas” in terms of drug-dealing and other crimes.

Residents said they received a notice from the Postal Service about 10 days ago informing them that home mail delivery was being permanently stopped. Kelley said there was no detailed explanation for the change.

For the next several days, the block’s residents were forced to retrieve their mail at the post office in downtown San Bernardino. On Monday, a central mailbox with numbered and locked slots for each household was erected in the middle of the block.

In an interview with KCBS television, Postal Service spokeswoman Patricia White defended the action. Termination of service on the street, White said, “wasn’t just an overreaction,” but was a legitimate response to the threats Mick received.