Editing Blog/2024-07-02/Imaginary Heroes (section)

== US Postal Police ==

First, I suppose come the US Postal Police. In theory they're armed and empowered to dispatch anyone who threatens USPS workers. 

[[File:Reddit Screenshot - Postal Police Don't Fuck Around.png|thumb|alt=A screenshot of a reddit comment that reads: Goad them into assaulting a postal worker. SF and CA may be Charmin soft when it comes to crime, but the US Postal Inspectors and DOJ don’t fuck around when it comes to crimes committed against postal workers.|The theory of postal police]]

[[File:Twitter Screenshot - Postal Police Badasses.png|thumb|alt=A Twitter thread about the postal police: They have very good technology and well-trained agents and they don't usually go ahead with things unless they know they're going to win. People who do Bad Stuff through the mail usually don't understand how well that can be tracked|The theory again]]

But [https://www.sfchronicle.com/politics/article/postal-carrier-robbery-sentence-19215142.php I came across some news by accident] the other day that made it seem that this is not the case. To be clear, I would hope for law enforcement to be 
very good at enforcing the law, but it doesn't seem like they're as scary as these people are making them out to be. After all, let's look at this random case:

<blockquote>
Wise, then 33, entered the postal truck in San Francisco’s Ingleside neighborhood in August 2022, threatened to shoot the driver and stole letters, packages and the driver’s cellphone. He was accompanied by another man who has not been caught.
</blockquote>

Looks like a case for our federal experts: the postal police. To their credit, they solved half the case and nabbed one fellow. Well, what did he get for these crimes?

<blockquote>
The judge ultimately imposed a 30-day jail term, telling Wise at his Feb. 14 hearing that some period of confinement was needed to send a message to other would-be postal thieves. He also ordered Wise to pay $1,300 in restitution.
</blockquote>

Listen, it's actually really good that they caught one of the two guys peacefully (or at least without killing him). And since he was the guy holding the gun, he's obviously the more important one to catch. But none of this is really scary. "Hold a gun to a postman's head and you'll get THIRTY DAYS IN JAIL!" Yeah, I'm sure people are quaking in their boots.