A $250,000 reward is being offered for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the person who fatally shot a postal worker outside a home on Chicago’s south side.
The National Association of Letter Carriers “is heartbroken by the murder of Octavia Redmond, our sister from Chicago, IL Branch 11,” the agency said in a statement, adding that “the perpetrator is still at large.”
Redmond, 48, was standing outside a residence in West Pullman, on the 12100 block of South Harvard Avenue, when she was shot Friday around 11:40 a.m., the Chicago Sun Times reported.
She suffered several gunshot wounds, including to her chest, and was rushed to Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn, where she was pronounced dead a short time later.
In wake of the shooting, police said the suspect fled westbound in a vehicle on 121st Street. He remains at large.
Authorities have released few details about the suspect other than he is male.
“Shockingly, now it is not uncommon for letter carriers to be targeted, assaulted, and even murdered. This is completely unacceptable, and we need immediate change,” read the NALC statement. “Every American deserves to go to work without fear and return home safely to their families.”
Redmond, a wife and grandmother, had been a letter carrier for more than 15 years. Her husband also works for the Postal Service.
Residents along her recent route, which she’d been working for nearly two years, said her warmth would be missed.
Kim Sanders, who works at a group home a few blocks down, remembered her as “a mother to the neighborhood.”