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The man accused of a string of attacks and threats against USPS mail carriers in Santa Monica, California, was recently arrested on unrelated charges, according to a report, but neighbors are not convinced the individual who’s allegedly been menacing the neighborhood for months will be kept behind bars.
It’s also not clear whether the U.S. Postal Service will resume deliveries in the neighborhood.
USPS sent a notice to residents over the weekend announcing that service would be suspended to all addresses in the 1300 block of 14th Street because "multiple carriers have been subjected to assaults and threats of assault from an individual who has not been located or apprehended."
USPS STOPS DELIVERIES TO CALIFORNIA NEIGHBORHOOD AFTER REPEATED ATTACKS ON MAIL CARRIERS
CBS News identified the suspected attacker as 38-year-old Devon Morgan, reporting that he was arrested on an unrelated vandalism charge on Friday and has been booked into Los Angeles County Jail several times. As of Tuesday morning, the online jail roster showed no current inmates by that name.
"You hear the post office as rain, sleet or snow," resident Danielle Venturino told CBS News. "They're supposed to bring you your mail no matter what. For them to stop mail, it made me feel really unsafe."
A USPS mail truck leaves for a delivery. (iStock)
Fox News Digital reached out to the Santa Monica Police Department, as well as the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, the law enforcement arm for the USPS, for clarification early Tuesday.
Residents expressed concern to CBS News that someone will be seriously hurt before Morgan is kept behind bars for good. Neighbors said Morgan is often incoherent and angry and has been known to menace nearby businesses and walk around threatening people with a golf club slung over his shoulder.
"He walks around with a golf club over his back," resident Jim Price said. "It's a wood, and it's very threatening to people."
"He was waiting by my car swinging a golf club, and I was by myself," Cori Newman, the manager at the nearby Truxton's restaurant, told CBS of Morgan. "It was terrifying."
"It's going to take someone literally being physically really hurt before something happens," Newman added.
On Monday, USPS spokeswoman Natashi Garvins told Fox News Digital there have been three incidents in the 1300 block of 14th street involving three separate letter carriers over the last several months, and, as a result, service has temporarily been suspended.
"This is an unusual, but necessary step to protect our employees," she said, declining to go into detail about the specific incidents.
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A spokeswoman for the Santa Monica Police Department told Fox News Digital on Monday that she was only aware of one documented assault with a deadly weapon on a USPS employee on that street on Jan. 19, 2022. In that incident, a mail carrier was struck with a broomstick, suffered a minor injury to an arm and did not require medical attention, and then declined prosecution a month later, Santa Monica police Lt. Erika Aklifi said.
"If there were other incidents of USPS mail carriers being attacked, we were unable to locate additional reports," Aklifi added. "Without speaking to the postmaster, it will be difficult to know the extent of this issue. I have never heard of the Postal Service suspending service for all residents in a neighborhood, and can only refer you to them for answers about their course of action."
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