A California woman has been arrested over a bizarre incident that took place in Salinas recently, and the details of the arrest are both shocking — and a little comical. If you start having issues with missing or stolen mail, what you absolutely should not do is what 41-year-old Yelena Shen is accused of doing.
The incident reportedly took place on Friday at the Salinas, California Postal Office. KSBW News reports that Yelena Shen entered the post office and began demanding answers behind why her mail was missing. During some point the California woman allegedly pulled out a handgun and threatened the postal workers, warning them that she’d return in four days if her missing mail wasn’t delivered. When Shen left the scene, workers immediately called police.
Salinas Police quickly came up with a way to trap the 41-year-old California woman, and did so in an absolutely hilarious way. An officer called Shen from the Post Office, and told her that her missing mail had been located. Without suspecting the obvious, Shen gleefully returned to the place where she’d just used a handgun to threaten workers. Of course, she was very quickly arrested — at which point authorities discovered the handgun wasn’t even real.
Yelena Shen has been charged with threatening with the intent to terrorize (a felony), along with an added misdemeanor charge of “exhibiting a firearm.” She is currently in Monterey County jail unless someone she knows can afford her $30k bond.
Chelsea Hoffman is a true crime writer with over a decade of professional writing experience. She is best known for her coverage of missing people including the tragic disappearance of Madeleine McCann as well as the heartbreaking cases of Dylan Redwine, Heather Elvis and many others.
