By Scott MacFarlane – December 29, 2015
More than 3,000 new postal workers have been hired in the D.C. area recently, as the post office works to reduce the number of late mail deliveries — two years after a mail carrier was murdered working after dark.

Tyson Barnette was delivering mail at about 7:30 p.m. in November 2013 when someone shot him and left him for dead. Police have not made an arrest in the case.

…A letter carrier returned from his or her route after 5 p.m. 100,000 times in the D.C. region in the months before Barnette died, the review found. Late deliveries from the Hyattsville Post Office and Columbia Heights came under particular scrutiny.

“We had a number of carriers that was robbed during that time frame,” Branson said. “So, yeah, a lot of carriers were apprehensive.”

The agency has been under pressure ever since to get trucks and carriers back earlier. That’s led to more hiring — including a class of 40 newly hired carriers who were sent through orientation at the Brentwood postal facility in D.C. Tuesday….

Read More / Source: Two Years After Slaying, Post Office Adds Carriers to Reduce After-Dark Deliveries | NBC4 Washington