Man currently in prison for a shooting is sentenced for attacking St. Paul mail carrier

A man has received a federal prison term of nearly six years for attacking and seriously injuring a mail carrier in St. Paul who chastised him for not yielding in his car at an intersection.

Kevin D. Blocker, 27, was sentenced Monday in U.S. District Court in St. Paul to 5 ²⁄₃ years in prison and three years of supervision after his release after he pleaded guilty to assaulting a federal employee in October 2018.

Later that year, Blocker was charged in connection with a shooting in Moorhead that left one person wounded. He was convicted of drive-by shooting and second-degree assault and is currently in Stillwater prison until April 2026. Once he leaves prison, his federal sentence kicks in, said defense attorney Kevin Gregorius.

"In my opinion, the sentence was way too short," the now-retired mail carrier, Terry Hopponen, said Wednesday, "He should be in there for life because it was possibly life-threatening."

Hopponen, who delivered mail for the Postal Service for 25 years until May 2021, said he was back on the job within seven days of being assaulted.

"I didn't see anything coming," he recalled. "I woke up as the St. Paul Fire Department EMTs were putting me on a stretcher and into the ambulance. I don't know what I was hit with, but it put a nice gash in my head."

Blocker's defense argued in a pre-sentence filing for its client to receive a five-year term, pointing out that "he has availed himself of significant programming and rehabilitative efforts" while in prison.

"Together with the brutality of his attack, [Blocker's] tepid remorse justifies a sentence of 72 months' imprisonment after he is released from state custody," the prosecution's counter-filing read.

According to court records:

Hopponen was crossing at the intersection of Front Avenue and Oxford Street, where Blocker was driving his car at a speed that made Hopponen concerned he might not stop. Blocker did stop, then honked at Hopponen.

The mail carrier said he stopped in front of the car and said, "You need to yield to me," one court filing quoted him as saying. Later on the route, Hopponen was assaulted.

A nearby resident told a grand jury that he saw Blocker, at 240 pounds, get out of his car and punch the much smaller Hopponen in the face. The blow caused the mail carrier to collapse and hit his head on the pavement.