Mail carriers in the Bay Area are on edge this holiday season following two recent robberies.
The United States Postal Service is offering a $150,000 reward for information leading to an arrest in each case.
"It's terrible. It's horrible," said Edward Fletcher, president of the East Bay branch of the National Association of Letter Carriers. "No letter carrier should wake up every day wondering if today's the day they're going to be robbed."
As the holiday season kicks into gear, officials report two mail carriers have been robbed at gunpoint.
"We're out there to be Santa Claus and get the packages delivered and out of the blue somebody comes up behind you and sticks a gun in your face," Fletcher said.
On Thursday, the postal service released a surveillance video of a suspect who approached a mailman on Parrott Street in Vallejo in late November.
The suspect demanded the mailman's master mailbox key at gunpoint.
Local
Surveillance cameras captured a similar robbery in Antioch on Nov. 29. Postal service officials said the video shows a woman in a blue jacket pulling out a gun. The woman then robbed the letter carrier and took his master key, according to postal inspectors.
"It's a federal crime," U.S. Postal Inspector Jeff Fitch said. "A potential 25 years in federal prison."
Get a weekly recap of the latest San Francisco Bay Area housing news. >Sign up for NBC Bay Area’s Housing Deconstructed newsletter.
The head of the letter carriers union said the attacks are unacceptable, adding some mail carriers who have been victimized are too afraid to go back to work.
