ROSEVILLE, Calif. — Postal keys were stolen off a mail carrier during an armed robbery. And a Roseville woman said she saw how it all happened.
Jacqui Isom was sitting outside her home when she noticed someone approaching a United States Postal Service mail carrier on Tuesday afternoon.
"What kind of threw me... is that I saw the mailman kind of step back and put his hands up and say, 'Woah, woah, woah.' So that kind of caught my attention," Isom said.
At first, she had no idea she was witnessing a robbery. It happened just about a block from her home off of Mockingbird Street.
"After that, once the person was backing up, I saw an individual. He started jumping next to the car. He was wearing grey and then all of a sudden got into the vehicle and then the vehicle just sped off. I heard the tires screeching and all of that," Isom said.
According to Roseville police, the suspect demanded the victim's keys, and after a brief struggle, showed him a gun and stole the keys.
Those keys grant access to all mailboxes in the 95747 zip code.
"The keys are designed to make the carrier's route more efficient, so they don't have to carry a thousands keys a day. Beyond that, I can't talk about where the keys will open mailboxes without giving the person who just stole them ideas on how best to use them," said Postal Inspector Matthew Norfleet.
Norfleet said the worker was not injured.
But residents are worried this could happen again.
"It's honestly kind of concerning. We order a lot of stuff online. We have a lot of expensive stuff," said Adriana Au, a Roseville Resident.
With the upcoming election, people are already considering alternatives when turning in their ballots.
"For the election... I'm just going to use the opportunity to go somewhere else, like the main post office to actually mail in my ballot and everything. I'm not really going to trust and depend on putting it out here for now," Isom said.
The Postal Inspection Service is asking people to collect their mail daily. You can also place a hold on your mail or track it.
"I want to remind people that the motivation for this robbery was to get this key to get the mail, to cash the checks and make some money off it. So if we can shut down that chain and make it so this crime isn't profitable for the mail thieves, then we'll make it less lucrative," Norfleet said.
Residents are being asked to check their surveillance video and report suspicious behavior they may see.
Norfleet said there's an up to $150,000 reward for information that leads to the arrest and conviction of the suspect.
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