Piles of mail were found in two separate locations in Glendale Thursday morning, including one incident where a rented truck was captured on surveillance video dumping bags of unopened letters and packages in the parking lot of a business.
The first incident was reported at 7:30 a.m., in the 1000 block of Allen Avenue, according to Glendale Police Department Sgt. Christian Hauptmann.
Roughly two hours later, police received another call regarding dumped mail, this time behind a business in the 1600 block of Glenoaks Boulevard, according to Hauptmann.
It was the second reported incident — outside 7Q Spa Laser & Aesthetics — where surveillance video captured the moment a rented truck dumped bags of unopened mail and took off.
“It happened early in the morning, 5:40, and it was a Budget rental — big truck — that backed up to the parking lot. And they’re like, slowly, one by one, they’re dropping the packages,” Lilia Serobian, one of the medical spa’s owners, told KTLA.
She said the “huge pile” contained various size of packages — all of it U.S. mail.
The truck was definitely not a USPS truck, Serobian added.
A spa employee found the large mound of boxes and envelopes in the parking lot, and police were called out to the scene. A USPS manager went and collected the mail.
More U.S. mail was found in an alley less than a mile away from the spa, according to police. It was not immediately clear whether both piles were dumped by the same truck.
Postal Service investigators are looking into the dumping incidents, Glendale police said.
Inspectors will try to determine which post office — and specifically what route— the mail came from, as well as who rented the truck.
The incidents come as USPS has been mired in controversy over recent changes that have led to widespread mail delays across the country. A recent Los Angeles Times investigation uncovered employee accounts of food left rotting in packages and dead chicks in boxes at a South L.A. postal facility, after workers fell behind in processing packages amid nationwide cutbacks to staffing and mail-sorting machines.
On Thursday, California Attorney General Xavier Becerra announced action on the matter, saying the state is seeking to immediately reverse the Postal Service’s new policies. He said the sweeping changes “have slowed mail operations across the country,” including the delivery of critical medications and paychecks.