MEDFORD, MASS. (WHDH) - Authorities are continuing to gather surveillance video as the search for a group of suspects who attacked a mail carrier in Medford continued on Wednesday.
US Postal Service officials said a letter carrier was delivering mail in the area of Arden Road and Winthrop Street just before noon on Tuesday when a group of “several unidentified suspects” attacked the victim, leaving the carrier with significant but not life-threatening injuries.
Medford police at the time said he suffered serious facial injuries, and noted that the suspects appeared to steal the master key for the mail box(es) on the carrier’s letter route.
While the suspects’ getaway car was later found in Lowell, a large backpack was also found four houses down from the scene of the attack.
“I saw it, I came inside and told my husband, I said ‘Is that your bag, I’ve never seen it before,’ and he said ‘No,’ so that’s when we called the police,” Michelle Abacherli told 7NEWS.
Abacherli said she didn’t know about the crime in her neighborhood when she first spotted the bag in her yard, but that soon afterwards, police established a scene by her home.
“They came over and had told us that, twenty minutes earlier, there was an assault and so they thought it might be connected, so they had to rope it off and they brought a K9 to check it out and see if the scents matched up,” she said.
Home security video shared with 7NEWS captured the moments leading up to the attack on Tuesday. In a corner of the video, a group of individuals could be seen gathered across the street, apparently waiting as the carrier made his way down a path.
On Wednesday, investigators were back in the area, searching for additional footage.
“(My camera spotted) three boys – masked, were running frantically,” neighbor Prabitha Natarajan said.
Some locals who had video told 7NEWS that they were asked by police not to share images and potentially risk jeopardize the investigation.
The incident is the latest in a string of similar crimes targeting postal workers, including incidents in Peabody, Lowell, and Mattapan.
In response to the most recent robbery, USPS Inspector in Charge Ketty Larco-Ward told 7NEWS:
“The U.S. Postal Inspection Service takes the safety and security of USPS employees seriously and will spare no resource to bring to justice those who commit these heinous acts against Postal Service employees.”
As an investigation into the case continues, anyone with information is asked to call the US Postal Inspection Service at 1-877-876-2455 or Medford Police at 781-395-1212.
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