A postal carrier in the Middle River area of Baltimore County was recently held up and his keys were taken, and that’s leading to a rash of mail theft.

Councilman David Marks, who represents Middle River, said he confirmed the robbery with the county police, who have not returned WYPR’s request for information.

Shafiyq Hinton, a community leader who lives in the Greenleigh neighborhood in Middle River, said mail boxes in the 21220 zip code are being opened up and items taken out, apparently with a master key that was taken from the carrier.

Hinton said residents are being told that the locks are not being changed. Instead, authorities are trying to use surveillance to catch the thief.

“I don’t think it’s fair to tell a group of residents or people that, hey, we’re not going to change the locks, we’re going to set up surveillance, but in the meantime just go check your mail and essentially hope that your personal identification doesn’t get stolen,” Hinton said.

“The direction we were given was to just check our mail every day,” Hinton added.

The United States Postal Service did not return a request for comment.

Hinton said the boxes that are being targeted are in affluent subdivisions. A number of people collect their mail from the same box. Photographs shared with WYPR show multiple mailboxes with their doors wide open with little or no mail inside.

“One mailbox has 20 different residents in it, so they just pop it open with the key and take whatever they want to take,” Hinton said. “They leave it open so you know that they were there, which is even crazier.”