Postal worker shot, killed after homeowner’s mail curtailed
UPDATE: Funeral services set for letter carrier fatally shot in April.
UPDATE: A 21-year-old man is jailed and awaiting federal charges in the fatal shooting of an Indianapolis mail carrier, the U.S. Postal Inspection Service said. Click here for the latest info.
INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — The U.S. Postal Service is offering up to a $50,000 reward for information leading to an arrest after a letter carrier on Monday was shot and killed while delivering mail.
The letter carrier, Angela Summers, is the mother of a teenage girl.
A postal union official told News 8 that Summers was shot and killed outside a home where she had complained about dogs running loose.
Summers had been a letter carrier in Indianapolis for almost two years. She was 45, the Marion County Coroner’s Office said.
“I met her from Day 1 and she always had a smile, was engaged,” said Paul Toms, president of the National Association of Letter Carriers‘ Indianapolis Local Branch 39.
People who lived on Summers’ route say she was always smiling and would often bring treats for the dogs in her neighborhoods.
“We seen her basically everyday that we have been living over here,” Aaron Oliver said. She would “pet the dogs and everything, she is a really nice person.”
Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department and emergency crews were called to a person shot shortly before 4 p.m. Monday in the 400 block of Denny Street. That’s just southeast of East Michigan Street and North Sherman Drive.
IMPD said Monday night before Summers was identified that the woman shot on Denny Street later died at a hospital. The U.S. Postal Inspection Service and IMPD are investigating the homicide and the FBI is assisting. IMPD on Monday night provided no information on a possible suspect. The Postal Inspection Service has not answered a request for information sent by email Monday night from News 8. A local representative of the U.S. Postal Service said she could not comment.
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The killing of a postal carrier in the line of duty is a potential federal crime.
The shots were fired from a home where the U.S. Postal Service had issues.
Union president Toms said, “There was an issue with the dogs at that residence, and you give three letters and, on the third one, we curtail the mail.”
Mail had been blocked from the home on North Denny Street for about two weeks, which requiring the people at that home to pick up their mail instead, according to the local union.
Neighbor Oliver said, “But being shot by somebody because they couldn’t get their mail? No, I wouldn’t ever think that that would happen.”
He says this story hits close to home for him as his father is a letter carrier.
“I know it happened to a mail carrier. I don’t want it to happen to my family. Just being out here it could have been one of my family that could have been shot by that bullet,” Oliver said.
While being a witness to violence is not unusual for letter carriers in Indianapolis, this is a first.
“I started in 1973 and this is the first death to violence of any type that we have had in an Indianapolis post office,” Toms said.
While police continue to search for evidence, Summers’ friends and family are left with questions of their own.
Tom said, “Why? How could it happen? She was a wonderful, wonderful person.”
The killing of a postal carrier in the line of duty is a potential federal crime.
The Indianapolis letter carriers’ union said it will put together a trust for Summers’ daughter. To help, contact Toms at 317-417-6252 or paulatoms@ameritech.net.
