Letter carriers demonstrate in front of the Lloyd George Federal Building in downtown Las Vegas Wednesday, April 17, 2024. The demonstration was organized by the National Association of Letter Carriers, the national labor union of city delivery letter carriers employed by the United States Postal Service.
Wednesday, April 17, 2024 | 10:57 p.m.
Roberta Dang used to enjoy her job as a letter carrier in Las Vegas, and was happy to share that passion with a new trainee last year.
But a disgruntled resident of an apartment complex changed her outlook.
Dang said she was attacked in an incident where she was slammed to the tile floor and hit her head on a wall.
The assailant got up and walked out, she said.
Dang said she’s watched the surveillance video of her assault a million times — but she was hit so hard, she can’t remember it happening.
Dang shared her story Wednesday outside the Lloyd D. George Courthouse with members of the National Association of Letter Carriers for a rally to bring attention to the increase in attacks on letter carriers and demand action.
Dang choked back tears when she spoke, saying she can’t deliver mail to apartment complexes or train new carriers because of the attack. Other members of the union, including national president Brian Renfroe and Las Vegas regional president Paul Peterman, also spoke during the event.
“We’re here because you would think this increase in violence would come with an increase in protection, prosecution and sense of community, but unfortunately this has not been the case,” Renfroe said.
Attacks on the federal workers are growing nationally, increasing 78% from 2022 to 2023, according to the Associated Press. According to Peterman, only 15% of the over 2,000 attacks in the past three years have been federally prosecuted.
In Clark County, over 30 letter carriers have been the target of robberies or assaults over the last three years, according to the union, including three attacks in Summerlin since September of last year. At the Winterwood station on the east side of Las Vegas, nine letter carriers have been attacked in the past year.
“It used to be, ‘Nobody messes with the mailman,’ but now it’s a free for all out there,” said Ladena Long, a Las Vegas letter carrier with 30 years of experience.
The attacks are often motivated by robbery, officials said, but sometimes are more senseless, like the one against Mike Roksvold.
Roksvold was delivering mail when he was robbed at gunpoint with a sawed-off rifle. The gunman and his accomplice stole his mail truck before it broke down on Boulder Highway. The two were later sentenced for the crime but faced no federal prosecution.
“It was a tough nut to crack, what that guy did, it hurt a lot,” Roksvold said.
In 2023, the United States Postal Service launched Project Safe Delivery to combat the spike in crime against letter carriers. The program primarily has focused on “hardening targets” of mail theft by updating postal service equipment and encouraging local law enforcement to punish perpetrators, U.S. Postmaster General Louis DeJoy said in a press release.
Speakers at the rally highlighted HR 7629, also known as the Protect Our Letter Carriers Act, as part of a solution to the increase in attacks. The act would allocate $7 billion in funding to the Postal Service to update infrastructure to more secure electronic equipment and elevate the penalties for attacking postal workers to the same as federal law enforcement.
National Association of Letter Carriers spokespeople highlighted the sense of community for their fellow letter carriers, referring to one another as “brother” and “sister.” The letter carriers view each other as a “second family,” Dang said, and have helped her get through the difficult periods after the attack.
“When you first come on as a carrier and you don’t know what you’re doing, you ask somebody else,” Dang said. “You develop long-lasting friendships, go to birthday parties, you become a family.”
