A U.S. Postal Service letter carrier was shot Friday afternoon, October 3, at the West Mall Place Apartments in Everett, Washington, after a confrontation with a package delivery driver. Police said officers arrived around 12:50 p.m., found the mail carrier with a gunshot wound and took a delivery driver into custody at the scene. Authorities reported no ongoing threat to the public as the investigation continues.
Local reports place the shooting at the complex just north of Highway 99, with the carrier initially taken to Providence Regional Medical Center. A subsequent update from a Seattle news aggregator said the victim was later transferred to Harborview Medical Center and that the wound was to the face. Officials have not released the worker’s condition.
FreightWaves first reported that the person in custody was an Amazon driver. A separate local outlet also noted, based on on-scene imagery, that the suspect was working for Amazon—a detail police have not yet publicly expanded on.
Witness accounts posted over the weekend on local and driver subreddits describe an argument that began when the USPS carrier had multiple cluster mailboxes open and told the other driver to wait, a common safety practice when mail panels are unsecured. Several posters who said they live at the complex or deliver nearby wrote that the dispute became physical before a shot was fired, striking the carrier near the eye. Investigators have not confirmed these specifics, but the narratives point to friction over access to shared mail areas inside apartment buildings.
Police and regional media have confirmed key facts: the arrest of a package driver, the location and time of the shooting, and that there is no wider public danger. The Daily Herald likewise reported that the postal worker was transported for treatment and that the suspect remained in custody as of Friday evening.
Why it matters to trucking and last‑mile operations: this incident exposes a vulnerable seam in dense multifamily delivery, where drivers from multiple companies converge on the same constrained space under peak-time pressure. Cluster mailbox work requires USPS carriers to secure wide panels of unlocked boxes; building managers often post rules temporarily limiting entry during that work. When non‑USPS drivers push through to reach lockers or residents, the recipe for conflict is set. Without clear, shared protocols among carriers, tempers can flare—and, in rare cases, escalate catastrophically.
For fleets and delivery service partners, the operational takeaways are immediate: reinforce de‑escalation training; brief drivers on USPS procedures around cluster boxes; coordinate with property managers on posted access rules; and set strict expectations for etiquette when two carriers arrive at the same mailroom. Insurance and risk teams should also review incident‑response playbooks for mixed‑carrier sites, especially ahead of the holiday surge when apartment mailrooms become bottlenecks. These are low‑cost steps that can materially reduce liability exposure and keep drivers—and the public—safer.
Finally, the case could carry legal and reputational stakes. Any confirmed link to an Amazon DSP would bring renewed scrutiny of contractor oversight, hiring and compliance monitoring in the gig‑adjacent last‑mile model. And because the victim is a federal employee, potential charges fall under a higher legal bar, an outcome that should prompt every last‑mile operator to revisit policies on weapons, workplace conduct and site‑specific training before peak season.
Sources: FreightWaves, KIRO 7 News Seattle, FOX 13 Seattle, The Daily Herald (Everett), Hoodline, Reddit
This article was prepared exclusively for TruckStopInsider.com. Republishing is permitted only with proper credit and a link back to the original source.
