A mail carrier’s sense of security is gone and she fears her job could be next.
7’s Heather Walker Investigates.
Rose, mail carrier: “Back up, back up, you better back up.”
Rose: “I didn’t feel safe at this point.”
Rose started recording the minute she felt threatened in North Miami.
She asked us not to use her last name for fear of retaliation after a normal day on the job turned violent on March 6.
Rose: “Two ladies came downstairs. No one is supposed to come and take their mail or package or anything outside of those boxes while we’re delivering.”
But one woman decided to grab a package.
When Rose asked for I.D. or her mailbox key, she says the woman went off.
Rose: “They cursed me out, she charged at me while I was recording her, she got upset. She struck me in my face. She punched me in my face. That’s when my instant reflex went to go block, hit her back. I did anything that I could to defend myself.”
The police were called. In the report, it says the woman identified as Alexandra Remolien “was the primary aggressor.”
She was charged with battery.
Rose: “I had bruises on my arm. Then I noticed, like, my whole body was aching. I didn’t sleep that night because I was traumatized.”
Just when Rose thought things couldn’t get worse she learned she was being suspended from work.
A letter from her manager says she was placed on an “off-duty non-pay status” for “willfully delaying mail” and was told she can’t return to work until she gives an “investigative interview,” which has yet to be scheduled.
Rose: “It is no investigation to go on. The lady was charged with battery, I feel like everybody is like, against me, like I did something wrong. So basically, what they’re trying to tell me that I should of just stayed there, stayed on the floor, let the lady hit on me, beat on me?”
The manager here at the North Miami Post Office declined to comment.
But a spokesperson with USPS tells us that if mail carriers are ever in an altercation, they should call police, which Rose did.
Rose: “I was just doing my job. The person who went and attacked me, they’re living their life. She’s out on bond right now and I’m out without a job and that’s not fair”
She says the Post Office needs to do more to protect their workers.
Rose: “We was not taught how to defend ourselves on the street. We were taught how to defend ourselves from dogs. I also want them to be more sincere about our feelings. No one called me to ask me how I’m doing. No one cared to see my bruises, to know that I’m traumatized. They just don’t care.”
But Rose cares. It has been more than a month since she has received a paycheck and she’s going to keep fighting for her job.
Heather Walker, 7News
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