BILLERICA, MASS. (WHDH) - A 15-year-old Lowell boy is facing charges after police said he donned a mask and robbed a mail carrier at gunpoint in Billerica last week.
A woman who lives on Pages Court said she noticed two teenagers running through her yard when she pulled into her driveway last Tuesday. She said she then saw the mailman lying on the ground.
“I think he got a punch in the eye or face, or something like that. You could definitely see that his eye was swollen,” said witness Pam Glennon.
Glennon said the boys ran toward the center of town, initially fleeing on foot. She called 911 and spoke to the postal employee as they waited for police.
“He was extremely shaken up, and he kept yelling, ‘They got my keys, they got my keys,'” Glennon said. “They weren’t after the package. They weren’t after the packages in the truck. They were after, from what I understand, a set of keys to get into the boxes.”
Another letter carrier worked that same street Wednesday, telling 7News he was filling in for the usual mailman. He declined to comment on camera.
The U.S. Postal Inspection Service said thieves are usually looking for checks deposited in the blue mailboxes.
“A lot of times they are doing check washing. Once they have the check, they can wash it in a chemical solution and change the payee name on the check. Sometimes victims don’t realize their checks have actually been stolen until they look at their bank account statements and realize the check they had mailed, maybe for the cable bill, was deposited by somebody else that they didn’t know,” said U.S. Postal Inspector Danielle Schrage.
In February 2023, a Boston man was arrested weeks after he allegedly robbed a mail carrier in Peabody, federal authorities said.
Home surveillance video shows a group of five people waiting to attack a mail carrier working his route in Medford on Halloween last year.
“We just want people to realize that crooks are out there to steal mail,” Schrage said.
A second suspect in the Billerica robbery could still be at large.
The National Association of Letter Carriers called mail carrier robberies a disturbing trend.
Since 2020, more than 2,000 attacks have been committed against mail carriers while on the job, according to the U.S. Postal Service.
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