Dyker Heights Woman & Pitbull Brawl With Mailman [Video]

The life of a mailman is hard enough. Rain or shine, postal workers are out there, lugging around that bag of mail, marching up to strangers’ homes to bring them their packages.

Occasionally these encounters go awry, like yesterday, at 11am, when a Dyker Heights woman and her dog attacked a USPS employee who had come to retrieve a misdelivered parcel.

Surveillance video of the incident appears to show the postal worker ringing the doorbell of a home on 12th Avenue, when suddenly a dog leaps out at him. The fleeing man kicks the dog, and after briefly returning inside, the woman returns with a dog kennel and proceeds to violently assault the mailman with it.

The Daily News spoke to both parties:

Nicole Bommarito, 43, claimed she told the postman, John Chen, a 26-year veteran mail carrier, that she would get the package and closed her door.

But then, she said, Chen opened her door and walked into the house. Bommarito’s pet bulldog Leo attacked him and she pushed him out of her house.

“I was gonna bring it out myself, but he rang the doorbell before I could,” she said. “I told him, wait, I’ll get the package, because I knew my dog was in the house, but he opened my front door into my living room and my dog ran at him…He (the dog) jumped on him.”

Chen, who has been a mailman for 26 years, offered a different version of events.

“I opened the screen door and knocked on the door, and she wouldn’t give it back. She tried to kick me. I tried to get away,” the postal worker told the outlet. “I think there’s something wrong with her. I was scared. I didn’t do anything wrong.”

It would be a case of he said/she said, except that it’s a federal offense to attack government employees, including postal workers.

Dyker Heights residents we spoke to expressed disbelief at the incident.

“Guess one of the neighbors will not be getting her mail anytime soon,” said neighbor Stanley Ng.

Ng has a point. According to this article on Save the Post Office, it is not unusual for the USPS to suspend service to a customers — or even an entire block — due to an unrestrained attack dog.

Though cops responded to the scene, no injuries were reported and no arrests were made, according to police. The tabloid reports that both Chen and Bommarito are considering filing charges.