SAN ANTONIO — A local man is waiting to hear back from the U.S. Postal Service after submitting numerous complaints late last year against the mail carrier who services his neighborhood on the east side of San Antonio.
The man, who asked to remain anonymous, said the confrontations with the mail carrier began suddenly last fall.
"For a while I was hoping there was a way we could resolve this. That maybe we could see each other and work it out but that seems to be not the case," said the man.
The first incident occurred in September 2021 when the man was picking up a food order in the neighborhood. He said the postal worker almost hit him in the parking lot with his USPS van. He shared images with KENS 5.
"He pulls up within inches of me and doesn't apologize. He sees me but just walks into the restaurant, and so I waited for him to come out of the restaurant to ask him about it and he unleashed profanities. That was pretty disappointing because up until then I thought we had what was a pretty decent relationship," he said.
The man said more confrontations followed through December with most of the encounters taking place while he was out walking his dogs.
"I can't think of anything I might've done to offend him. As for the dogs, they've never been a threat to him," the man said.
On Dec. 30, he caught their most recent confrontation on a neighbor's doorbell camera. In the 3 minute clip, you can see the man walking his dogs as he crosses paths with mail carrier. Moments later, you hear the two exchanging words and then it goes silent. The man rings the neighbor's doorbell and seconds later, the mail carrier can been seen shouting at the man outside the fence.
"It's really shocking. At this point of the incident he's already been yelling at me, threatening me and my dog with assault. He said he was absolutely sure he could [mess] me up. [The reason] I'm at my friend's house is because I'm not sure if he was going to make good on those threats immediately, and because that neighbor has a security camera."
Due to the threatening comments made in the altercation, the man filed a report with San Antonio police following the incident. He plans to file a charge of threat assault against the postal worker.
"It was pretty upsetting, too, that somebody could do that on the clock and in uniform and get away with it," he said.
In addition to his police report, the man shared with KENS 5 his filings of at least 10 complaints online through the USPS website. He said he has not heard back from USPS on any of his complaints other than a generated email stating USPS is 'experiencing unprecedented volume increases and limited employee availability due to the impacts of COVID-19'.
"I want them at the very least to re-assign him to a different part of town."
We shared the video with USPS Customer Relations Coordinator Becky Hernandez on Sunday. Hernandez said they were working on viewing the video before getting some information back to KENS 5.
Below is the statement from USPS:
“Thank you for sharing this video with us. The Postal Service is committed to providing outstanding service to its customers and postal employees take great pride in their work delivering for the American public. We are currently investigating this incident and, depending on the results of the investigation, will take appropriate corrective action. We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience this incident may have caused our customer.”