Letter carrier did his job

I would like to clarify the Nov. 19 article about a postal worker attacking a kid who was supposedly attempting to stop a package theft.

As president of the local branch of the National Association of Letter Carriers, I would never recommend that any of our members take the law into their own hands. In this case, however, that is hardly what happened.

Surveillance video shows that two kids walked up the street together, observed the carrier deliver the parcel, and after the carrier left the premises one of the kids walked to the porch while the other acted as a lookout. Nothing in the video supports the initial story published by news outlets across the country. (Police later corrected their account of the incident.)

Additionally, the article failed to mention that a civilian who witnessed the incident chased the other kid down, or that the kid the carrier supposedly assaulted actually fell while he was running away with the package he had stolen. No assault occurred; the carrier simply detained him until police arrived.

The carrier might have been a little overzealous in his responsibility to protect all mail, money and equipment entrusted to him — as employees are directed to do — but I must question if the same wasn’t true about reporting this story.

This story was originally published December 4, 2017 at 5:45 PM with the headline "Letter carrier did his job."