Safe Post Office Made Safer : Despite a Clean Record, Security Is Beefed Up at Woodland Hills Station

The U.S. post office here has never been robbed or been the scene of violence.

But the low-slung building near the Ventura Freeway has been fortified just in case.

An inch-thick wall of bulletproof glass separates the postal clerks from the patrons, and bulletproof cubicles, built like air-locks, allow clerks to take packages from customers without contact with them.

“I’ve never seen a post office like this,” said Maria Vitocruz, 38, a legal secretary. “I guess society has changed a lot over the years.”

While the safety measures are more common at post offices in central Los Angeles, postal officials said Woodland Hills is only the second Valley station to get the extra security, after Arleta.

Once intimidating mostly for its long lines and the grim faces pictured on FBI “Most Wanted” posters, the Woodland Hills post office is now trying to intimidate criminals.

While robberies of post offices are uncommon in the Valley, postal officials say that hasn’t always been so. In 1994, nine San Fernando Valley post offices were held up--the North Hollywood station twice--by armed robbers, according to Pamela Prince, a postal inspector.

But there are no plans to build bulletproof walls elsewhere in the Valley, Prince said.

Although the Woodland Hills post office has never been robbed, the postal service says its strategy is sound. Prince says that businesses around the Woodland Hills station have installed bulletproof glass, and the nearby Ventura Freeway provides would-be robbers a quick escape route.

Of the approximately 40,000 postal outlets in the U.S., “a very, very small amount have security measures,” said Ricky Dodd, a spokesman for the U.S. Postal Service in Washington, D.C. “They’re mainly in our inner cities, our urban areas.

“We put in heavy-duty security measures--the bulletproof walls--where we see a high crime rate or a repeated problem,” he added. “There are exceptions, of course.”

The decision to install bulletproof walls, security cameras, perimeter fences or additional parking lights around postal buildings is made at the local level, Dodd said. For security reasons, the postal service cannot divulge further information on post-office fortifications, he said.

“Robberies are very rare, but it does happen and when it does, we’re concerned,” he said. “We make a security assessment and proceed from there. I can’t very well talk about the internal measures we take.”

Most Woodland Hills postal patrons said they understand the reasons behind the decision to fortify.

“It’s a shame that you have to put up a barrier between people, but these are the times we live in, as cliched as it sounds,” said Jim Kyriacou, 40, an emergency room physician in Woodland Hills. Kyriacou, who had just slipped a letter beneath the transparent partition at one of the six fortified windows, shook his head slowly.

“It’s kind of sad though. We can’t put up barriers everywhere,” he said. “But we’ll get used to it, just like the metal detectors at airports. They weren’t always there. Now we’re totally accustomed to it.”

That’s already happening for the postal workers.

“It did take some getting used to,” said Lisa Boatwright, a 10-year postal employee.

At the next window, Kevin Beeman echoed his colleague. To hear him clearly, one had to press an ear close to the small opening in the glass. “I feel safer, but I never had a problem with safety,” Beeman said.

After buying stamps and considering the transparent walls, Aaron Larks, 21, let slip a small grin. “We joke a lot about violence in the workplace, the disgruntled postal workers,” he said.

Statistics compiled by the U.S. Department of Labor show that it’s “a myth the post office is a dangerous place to work,” said Guy Toscano, an economist. “It is among the safest occupations in the U.S.”

But with guns and criminals at large, rosy statistics are not enough insurance, according to the postal service. “We want to be prepared, even if it’s bulletproof glass,” Prince said.

The North Hollywood station was the last Valley station robbed, in July 1996. The robber, Jose Donaldson, 34, was arrested later that same day and is serving a nine-year, nine-month sentence in federal prison.

Anne Boekelheide, a retired nurse who has lived in the Valley for 38 years, picked up a large box at Woodland Hills and said the walls posed no problems for her.

“I’ve lived here in the Valley since it was stubble field,” she said. “Progress means security. It’s not difficult to use. Most people will accept it and feel good about it. With what’s been happening, it has to be considered progress.”

Armageddon is not around the corner, she said, “but you never know who is.”