Thief's method to steal mail draws concern in Austin neighborhood

AUSTIN, Texas (FOX 7 Austin) - Seconds is all it took for a person, caught on surveillance video, to walk up and take mail from a cluster unit in a southwest Austin neighborhood.

“He had what appeared to be a master key, went right to the mail boxes,” Dean Dzurilla, who lives nearby, said.

A closer look shows the person is also armed with what appears to be a gun.

The quickness of how this theft played out has Dzurilla worried.

“We are concerned this was an inside job to say the least. The most telling sign is just the use of this key to open up all these mail boxes.” 

Right now the southwest Austin neighborhood is on high alert.

“It's not a good feeling to say the least never been a victim of mail theft before and this is hitting close to home, so not a good feeling at all."

While the people in the area are concerned about the recent mail theft, it isn't the first time they got hit and last time they took more than just mail. Back in October, surveillance video caught two people removing an entire mail cluster unit and load it into a truck.

WATCH SURVEILLANCE VIDEO OF MAILBOXES BEING STOLEN HERE

“Over the course of over an hour in the morning about 4 o'clock they were undoing the nuts and the bolts that has these pedestals in place,” said Dzurilla.

Dzurilla said he can't believe the lengths these people are going through to steal everyone's mail.

“Just stop, just stop, there's little reason to why you should be doing this. As a neighborhood we are going to prevent this from happening we are taking preventive measure to prevent this from happening again."

They've turned to the Travis County Sheriff's Office, USPS and the Office of Inspector General for help.

“Really this is about prevention, we want to prevent this from happening again,” said Dzurilla.

While right now it's mail being stolen, Dzurilla worries it may lead to something else.

“It starts as mail theft and then maybe escalates into something else such as breaking into a home and stealing something inside the house,” said Dzurilla.

While no arrests have been made, for now Dzurilla said the entire neighborhood is keeping an eye out.