By Jeremy M. Lazarus

Shekeera Greene injured her neck while delivering mail in late August.

Now the letter carrier’s injury has led to a shake-up of the U.S. Postal Service in Richmond.

Documents that helped her prove she was injured on the job have led to the removal of Howard G. O’Connor as postmaster for the Richmond area and the replacement of William Crotzer as manager of carriers at the Main Post Office on Brook Road.

Four others at the Main Post Office who supervise carriers at the Bellevue, Capital, North Side and Saunders post offices also have been replaced.

Asked by the Free Press to comment, the USPS responded with a statement that it does not discuss personnel matters.

Mr. O’Connor could not be reached for comment, nor could his successor, Heather Anderson, who was installed as Richmond’s interim postmaster.

Sources told the Free Press the removals were related to evidence Ms. Greene provided to the USPS Office of Inspector General showing that supervisors ripped off carriers by changing their time cards to reduce or eliminate overtime pay and that Mr. O’Conner and Mr. Crotzer allegedly condoned the supervisors’ actions.

The Free Press has been told that bonuses for managers and supervisors are tied, in part, to reducing overtime.

Ms. Greene’s injury led to the discovery that supervisors were making unauthorized changes to carriers’ time cards, as the Free Press reported last week, and the intervention of the USPS Office of Inspector General, an internal investigative unit which enforces USPS rules that ban such actions.

Ms. Greene never expected to create that kind of upheaval. A graduate of Huguenot High School, she started carrying mail about 15 months ago.

“I just wanted to do a good job,” she said.

Her role as a whistleblower began when she reported her neck injury to the USPS Office of Workers’ Compensation Programs seeking reimbursement for medical treatment and pay for the time she missed while recovering.

She said she received a shocking letter in reply, stating that her claim might not be considered and she might be charged with attempted fraud because “the evidence indicates that you were injured before or after your regular scheduled work hours.”

The OWCP noted Ms. Greene claimed to be injured at 8 p.m. while carrying mail, but the official time records showed “you ended your tour on Aug. 29 at 7 p.m. Please explain.”

That was a big surprise to Ms. Greene, who suffered the agonizing neck pain around 8 p.m. while still delivering mail on Hanover Avenue in The Fan. She said she returned to the Main Post Office after 9 p.m.

So she fought back. With the help of a shop steward, she obtained the official records of her time cards or “clock rings,” which showed that she had clocked out at 9:17 p.m. It also showed a supervisor changed her time card, claiming she had ended her shift at 7 p.m., according to her filing to the Office of Inspector General.

Ms. Greene also obtained time cards for four other carriers who had seen her return to the station after 9 p.m., and those cards also showed tampering by supervisors, according to the filing.

That evidence led the OWCP to approve her claim and cover her care and physical therapy for “strained neck ligaments,” plus award her back pay.

And it also led her and the four other carriers to file a whistleblower grievance on Oct. 20 with the headquarters of the Office of Inspector General in Alexandria and with the National Association of Letter Carriers’ Richmond-based Old Dominion Branch No. 496. That grievance included documentation of the time card changes by supervisors.

The OIG’s office did not respond to a request for comment.

Thelma Hunt, president of the union’s Old Dominion Branch, also declined to comment on the grievance or the changes in postal service management.

After returning to work a few weeks later, Ms. Greene tried to carry a full bag of mail, but she said she injured her neck again.

When she filed another claim with the OWCP, her supervisor objected. Her supervisor was Valerie Moore, one of those allegedly removed Nov. 16 by OIG investigators, sources told the Free Press.

According to documents, Ms. Moore wrote to the OWCP claiming that Ms. Greene had texted her and told her and others she was making up the injury and seeking to get paid.

Ms. Greene is fighting those allegations and has presented evidence to the OWCP in a bid to show Ms. Moore’s statements are false.

When Ms. Greene again returned to work, she took her diagnosis and a report from her doctor stating she could carry mail as long as she worked only six hours a day and lifted no more than 10 pounds at a time — well short of the 40-pound weight of a full mail bag. The bag, itself, weighs nearly 5 pounds.

However, she is now out of work. She claims Mr. Crotzer and two supervisors teamed up to falsely claim she threw out mail rather than deliver it.

Ms. Greene said her limitations meant she regularly brought undelivered mail back to Brook Road. She said on Nov. 3, she returned to the Main Post Office with full mail tubs that she put in Mr. Crotzer’s hands. She said when she came to work the next day, she was put on “emergency placement” for termination and was shown a photo of the mail tubs in an out-of-the-way place at the Brook Road building, as if the mail was to be thrown out.

Ms. Greene said she is awaiting a required letter spelling out the charges. That was supposed to be issued within three days, she was told.

She said he doesn’t know what will happen to the complaint now that Mr. Crotzer and two supervisors have been removed from their jobs. However, she said she’s unsure if she wants to return to the postal service.

“After all I’ve been through,” she said, “I really don’t think so.”