Postal Worker Fatally Stabbed in New York Deli

Harlem, NY (WorkersCompensation.com) – A postal worker is dead after being attacked over a spot in line in a Harlem deli.

It was the third murder in New York City in 2025, and it’s only two days in.

Officials said the 36-year-old letter carrier was working when he stopped into the deli at 168 Lennox Ave., in Harlem. Witnesses at the scene said the letter carrier stepped in front of a woman who was already in line, and the woman “went crazy.”

Police said the woman stabbed the letter carrier multiple times, stabbing the victim repeatedly in the stomach. The letter carrier was taken to Harlem Hospital, where he died from his injuries.

According to the U.S. Postal Inspection Services, a person of interest was taken into custody, and the knife was recovered from the scene, but no charges had been filed as of Thursday evening.

“The Postal Inspection Service can confirm that on January 2, 2025, a United States Postal Service letter carrier, assigned to Manhattan, was the victim of a homicide,” a spokesperson for the postal agency the New York Post. “USPIS takes matters involving the safety and well-being of post service employees as a top priority. We are working diligently with the New York State Police Department on this investigation.”

Letter carriers faced increased attacks, Mack I. Julion, assistant secretary treasurer of the National Association of Letter Carriers, said. In the past two years, more than 140 letter carriers were the victims of crime in Chicago alone, Julion said.

In July, an on-duty mail carrier was shot to death on Chicago’s south side. Octavia Redmond, 48, was pronounced dead at 12:20 p.m. when she was found shot in front of a residence in the 12100 block of South Harvard Avenue. Police said an unknown assailant fired at her about 11:40 p.m. After the shooting, the suspect jumped into a vehicle and drove away, officials said.

Redmond suffered several gunshot wounds, including ones to her chest. She was taken to Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn in critical condition where officials declared her dead. Redmond had been delivering mail on her regular block for about two years, officials said.

U.S. Rep. Jonathan Jackson, D-Ill., said the death was a call for federal officials to do something to protect postal workers. Jackson called Redmond, “a mother, grandmother, and citizen who was simply going about her normal day on the job to contribute to what makes our city work for all of us.”

Jackson has called for postal officials and law enforcement agencies to come together with concerned citizens to address what he called a “crisis” for postal workers.

“We must embrace the Redmond family and take immediate action to assure Chicago postal workers that we will do what it takes to make their jobs safer,” Jackson said in a statement.

Union representative Julion said officials should be able to take more action to protect postal workers, including increasing criminal penalties for anyone assaulting a postal worker in the course of their work, and for states and cities to ban cluster box units.

Julion said cluster box units are appealing to criminals because there are many mailboxes in one spot, many of which may contain checks or credit card information. The cluster boxes, usually located outside of apartment buildings, often use a single arrow key system that letter carriers have on them. Criminals attack letter carriers in order to steal the keys, officials said.

“The National Association of Letter Carriers has consistently advocated for door-to-door delivery as the preferred delivery method to best serve the needs of our customers and safety of our members,” Julion wrote in a July op-ed. “Recently, our association stood in support as bills were introduced in Congress, both in the House and the Senate, that would address a major part of our concerns. The Protect Our Letter Carriers Act would seek to increase the prosecution rate by prioritizing federal prosecution of offenders and seeking harsher sentencing for the robbery and assault of letter carriers. It would also provide the Postal Service with the resources to replace the current blue collection boxes with a high-security electronic version.”

Julion said those proposals would serve as a deterrent to crimes against letter carriers and decrease the incidents of attacks on those delivering the mail.

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