On Saturday morning, Dec. 24 at approximately 3:15 AM, an off duty policeman stopped  at the Shelton Post Office to pick up his mail and found the Post Office had been vandalized.  Shelton Police Department was notified when the Postal Clerk came on duty at 4 AM.

There were 25 damaged mail boxes with some of the mail from the boxes thrown all over the lobby of the post office.  The glass portion on the smaller mail boxes were broken and larger boxes had been pried open with a crowbar.   The actual vandalism occurred sometime between 6:30 PM on Friday and 3:15 AM on Saturday.

An interview with Postmaster Anthony Petito and Supervisor Jesse Sailors also identified other incidents of postal vandalism; Blue collection boxes in front of the Grapeview Post Office were destroyed, and several incidents of vandals removing mail from rural boxes.

Jessie Sailors, indicated mail theft seems on the rise; “this morning, we received reports out Agate road that outgoing mail, placed in a residential mail box had been stolen.”

As a result of the vandalism, the Postal Inspection Services will handle the investigation and future media releases.  Postmaster Petito will be sending out a notification letter to residents, whose post office boxes had been vandalized, encouraging people to pick up mail regularly and not leave mail in their boxes, even though the mail is inside the Post Office and in a locked box.

Regarding rural mail delivery, locking community mailboxes are available (to be purchased and installed by the community) which make it more difficult for drive-by mail theft.  

“Mail theft increases over the holidays, even more so with a down economy” reports Supervisor Jessie Sailors.  Possible preventative actions suggested but need approval by the District Postal Service were; closing the lobby after hours and/ or, installing cameras.