93-3-WMR Audio on Demand presents the Preston and Steve show podcast.

And now, Preston and Steve's news updates with Kathy Romano.

Friday, September 13th, a Friday the 13th.

Good morning, Kathy.

Ooh, scary.

Good morning.

In the news this morning, a federal investigation is

underway into why dozens of U.S. Postal Service bins, some full of mail were dumped onto the side of

a Philadelphia street. In a surveillance video obtained by police, two men could be seen pulling up to

6th in Wing of Hocking Streets in Hunting Park about 4.30 on Wednesday. You can clearly see them get out of their vehicle and proceed to open the trunk where the bins were being kept. The two men removed the bins and placed them on the sidewalk. It took them more than two minutes to take all of the bins out of the van and put them on the sidewalk. An employee of the business that owns the surveillance camera said the camera started ringing and making all kinds of noises, alerting them to the

activity taking place in the front of their business. U.S. Postal Inspector Alex Sylvester said the van was

stolen from an independent mail delivery contractor on Tuesday. The packages and property that were

discarded on the side of the road were picked up from the mail post office in Philadelphia and given

to this independent contractor, Sylvester said. Business owners hire contractors to deliver their mail. So the mail was no longer under federal

regulation once the contractor picked up the items for delivery.

It's a more casual approach to delivering the mail.

Well, the businesses hire the, you know, so it's basically like you're going to pick it up

and they're dropping it off to me. So I guess, you know, the, the understanding is you'll deliver it. Yeah, right. But you also wanted to be federally protected from the time it leaves your hands till the time it ends up on a doorstep just because the, uh, the post office hires out of, no, the post office does it. The business did. So it's like. Businesses do. Okay. Right.

Sylvester said that some of the mail was opened, but the suspects didn't take any of it. So investigators believe that the van was actually the target. They think they were trying to steal the van. I probably didn't realize that all the mail was in the back. Maybe they just wanted to read some letters there, lonely. Listen, sometimes a letter can pep you up. Yep.

By the time authorities got to the discarded mail, other people on the street had found it and gone through some of it.

Some of the mail had already been opened inside the bins were bills, school report cards, packages, and small boxes.

Sylvester said the Postal Service will make sure that the mail gets to the contractor to be delivered to the rightful owners.

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