From TRENTON, N.J. FBI Combs Route of Mail Carrier With Anthrax; Woman Served Less 300 addresses

AP/TBO.com ^ | Oct. 19 , 2001 | Lori Hinannt Associated Press Writer

[michaelt]

It could be an apples and oranges thing. Post Office people have to service the same addresses every delivery day. UPS guys have regular stops, of course, but some irregular ones too. Same with FedEx.

Now I'm not saying that there are no inefficiencies at the USPS, of course. ;-)

[sphinx]

Would be interesting to know how serving 250 to 300 addresses compares in terms of efficiency to FedEx Ground or UPS.

The difference is that USPS hits virtually every address every day. At the low end of the quoted range (250 stops), that's 31.25 per hour or a bit less than two minutes per stop on a eight hour shift, not including driving time. If most of those are single family houses, that's probably a pretty good clip, especially when you figure in driving time and walking door to door. I'm willing to bet FedEx and UPS drivers don't handle 30 stops an hour since they're going to somewhat scattered addresses.

I'm still all for privatizing the post office, but that's another story.

[fooman]

They WILL find the mailbox that this came from and when they doo.....

[Eva]

First of all, the article stated that the carrier did not pick up mail from any drop boxes, just personal homes and apt.s. Second, of course anyone could have stopped and put the mail into one of the boxes, but that doesn't mean they should not check each and every address on that route. These terrorists are not exactly the brightest bulbs on the tree or they wouldn't be willing to die for Bin Laden.

[callisto]

The news tidbit about Atta's rash on his hands at the pharmacy keeps coming to mind.

[callisto]

It may be in bad taste to say this, but at times like this a little MORE profiling would be helpful.

[BigBobber]

This anthrax attack (so far) is not very sophisticated. Look at the letters and how they were addressed. It's very possible they mailed from their own residence because:

o They may have already left the area or the country and are not worried about it.

o They had no idea g-men could trace the anthrax back to their place using swab tests

o They fooled the police by using a ficticious return address [Ooooh, Mohammed. They cannot find us! I made up a fake name of a school!]

These guys may replace the Czech brothers on SNL.

[bwteim]

You have to be able to dismiss the obvious possibilities before you can move on to the less-obvious ones.

Right on the money

[bubbafree]

I don't understand announcing the area of investigation prior to finishing it
I know Ewing and the College of New Jersey very well.
Arab population is most noted at gas stations and mini-marts, a bagel shop and a hotwings joint.
The high-rise apartment building that is in the area in question has always been know for its high number of Jewish residents, so I doubt it came from there.
Ewing's just a typical older suburb.

[bubbafree]

TCNJ has a decent Bio program (It's a highly rated school), and most students live off-campus in the Ewing community.

I'm sure that profiling (Arab &/or student) is being used on those 300 addresses.

[Catspaw]

FBI is such a waste of time. This letter or all of these letters could have been deposited in a drop off box or someone could have driven by someone's mailbox and put it in it.From Atlanta to Florida to New Jersey. Am I the only person on here who thinks the FBI is a waste of resources at working at nothing but diversion?

Given that you feel the "FBI is such a waste of time," what do you propose to do to catch these terrorists?

Abd what makes you presume it's solely the FBI investigating? The Postal Inspectors are also working these cases. And probably along with other law enforcement agencies, are now going door to door, checking out each address and each mailbox (and her route did not include any dropoff boxes). Even if the perps have skedaddled, there may well be traces of anthrax in the resident's mailbox--not only endangering the resident but the mail carrier. And they might even find a fingerprint or two which could ID the perps.

But hey, the FBI is such a waste of time....so I want to know, and with some detail and specificity, how you are going to track down these terrorists?

[callisto]

possibly "stirring the pot" a little bit, to see what/who moves. People react surprisingly when they think they are close to being caught. I'm sure many criminals have been caught this way.

[bvw]

Well, I just drove through West Trenton to get gas. The Post Office is closed, media and police are there. One satellite TV van, maybe a 12-20 media people. Otherwise a normal and quiet Friday in bucolic West Trenton. Didn't see any door-to-door activity.

My wife's four afternoon dental hygienist appointments at her office in West Trenton all canceld. However the golf course was busy. It's a beautiful day, for golf, for playing hookey.

[6ppc]

The woman, whom authorities have not identified, does not pick up mail from public boxes

Looks like we might have a dumb terrorist here. If I wanted to make sure nothing could be traced to me I sure wouldn't depend on the mail carrier to pick it up.

[Henk]

These guys are toast. I'm surprised news hasn't already broken of their capture. They never would have anticipated that their *mail carrier* would become infected, and that the carrier only serviced private mailboxes.

It should only be a matter now of swabbing 300 mailboxes for either anthrax or cleaning fluid residue.

[bubbafree]

more likely...the postal workers already blabbed to the press, so the surprise was gone.

[LiveFreeOrDieTryin]

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Would be interesting to know how serving 250 to 300 addresses compares in terms of efficiency to FedEx Ground or UPS.

It would. I suspect that when those services begin to deliver at least one item daily to nearly every single address in their routes, they will run into some logistical problems. I get several items a day by USPS delivery (envelopes full of junk, mostly), and go weeks and weeks without receiving a FedEx Air, Ground or UPS delivery. I see the FedEx and UPS trucks go down my street every day, though. If they had to stop at every single address, I think they'd need to change their delivery routes a lot.