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Legalize crime, as pro-crime activists did in the name of ‘criminal justice reform’ and you don’t just get more crime, you get third world living conditions as criminals go after everything.
And I do mean everything.
Cemeteries, streetlights and bridges across Los Angeles have been targeted by copper thieves in recent weeks, and now officials are vowing to crack down on the rise in thefts.
Thieves are stealing copper wire so they can sell it to recycling centers who may not know that what they are buying is stolen.
According to Los Angeles City Councilmember Kevin de León, the city has spent tens of millions of dollars on repairing damage caused by the thieves, most of whom use hand saws to saw right through metal panels.
“In my district alone, we have about 3,700 lights that are completely out,” Councilmember de León told KTLA 5’s Jacqueline Sarkissian. “We are on the 6th Street Bridge right now … half of the bridge is completely dark because these thieves have broken into the metal panels.”
“Streetlights that can be 15 to 30 feet high [can have] a minimum of 150 feet of copper wire,” de León said.
That’s a whole lot of copper wire and a whole lot of dark streets. It’s not just happening in LA either, but in other pro-crime cities.
Here it is in St. Paul.
St. Paul police arrested four people on Saturday, Jan. 20 in the city’s North of Maryland neighborhood after a person reported seeing several men who “appeared to be stealing copper” in the area of Nebraska Avenue West and Cohansey Street just after 5 a.m., according to the complaint.
Police say when they stopped the vehicle, there were four people inside. They add there were multiple light poles on Nebraska Avenue and in the two blocks around Cohansey Street that were not only damaged but also missing wiring, as well as multiple poles along Arlington Avenue North.
While searching the vehicle, the complaint says officers found a “large quantity of copper wiring in spools” in the back of the SUV, adding much of it was marked “City of St. Paul Public Works.” The document adds a backpack holding tools, a driver, a flashlight and a machete was on the front passenger side floor.
A passenger on the rear driver’s side, identified in the complaint as 24-year-old Eh Tha Blay, told police he was a “lookout” and held a flashlight while others cut wire and pulled it.
The front passenger, identified as 29-year-old Kwi Win, and the other rear passenger, 28-year-old Win Naing, refused to give a statement, according to the complaint. The document adds Win has previous convictions for possession of theft tools.
Minneapolis is giving up on copper wire.
“2023 was probably one of the worst years we’ve had for wire theft of the streetlight… both on city streets and the parkway roadways,” said Joe Laurin, project manager for the City of Minneapolis’ Public Works Traffic Division. “We’re not exactly sure why the the wire theft has increased so much. We suspect it could be related to the current copper prices being as high as they are.”
The city of Minneapolis is now taking a different approach in hopes of deterring copper thieves.
“We did purchase 25,000 feet, so approximately five miles of aluminum wire, to put into the conduit system and make repairs for approximately five miles of wire that was stolen during 2023,” Laurin said.
It’s not just streetlights impacted. The city is also seeing copper wire thefts at curbside EV Spot Network chargers.
Expect this to impact Biden’s $5 billion EV chargers rollout.
Solar panels are also ripe targets.
In mid-December, someone stole more than $100,000 in copper wire from a solar panel farm located near S. Jefferson and E. Chestnut Avenues in Fresno.
Green energy meets third-world reality.
I’m selling my home and to keep from having copper stolen, it will never set empty. I will live in it until the closing of the sale and I have the check in my hand.
That’s sensible. Also, depending on local laws, squatter issues.
I’ve seen guys stealing copper wire from abandoned buildings. I guess they went from being sneak thieves to full on predators. I mean, who cannibalizes a light-pole? Seriously?
You’d think if they were that industrious, they get jobs and earn real money but no.
a lot of them are addicts
they need a quick and dirty way to steal some stuff to buy what they need
most of the rest are third world invaders doing what they did back home, stealing
I live in San Jose CA (drug central) so I meet people like that.They live in some sort of black market barter society where they steal whatever they can and trade it for drugs. It seems like a sordid lifestyle to me. I’d rather just die. Why prolong the suffering? I guess they don’t suffer from their self degradation, though. Dirtbags have got to be dirty and they just don’t give a shit.
In the East Bay, they would climb hundred foot towers in guarded lots to steal light fixtures.
Yeah, that’s like those guys who climb up to freeway overpass signs just to spray paint grafitti on them. WTF? They think the rest of us are going to be impressed by their retarded defacement of public property? We can’t even decipher their scribbles.
When I was young I would climb towers and such just for kicks, not to commit vandalism, but I’ve recently developed acrophobia. It’s weird. I can’t even watch movies of people scampering around heights without my palms and even my bare feet sweating.
I recently watched some Nature Channel or whatever the Hell about natural history narrated by Morgan Freeman (He did a great job) and there were two animated scenes where Tyrannosaurus type dinosaurs were on the edge of cliffs and I got anxious, even though I wanted them to fall off.
Fuck, I hate getting old. I’m single so I don’t have the benefit of a good wife.
Copper Thieves should be sentence of 50 years or more in Prison
No they should be shot upon conviction.
Just wrap their hands in copper tightly for life.
Clearly, copper stealing has been a issue for awhile – but Daniel you article is the first of this subject that reminds me of the fast fall in South Africa. And – clearly this won’t be the last one.
After 15 years of civil war in Liberia, my company was given the task of getting the commercial airport back up and running. Copper thieves took the copper out of the very expensive and necessary for flight “navigational aids.” They cut 6-feet out of the 8-inch thick wire bundles and completely ruined the million-dollar navigation equipment and it could not be repaired. We had to get US Air Force expeditionary equipment to conduct flight ops and had 24 hour guards on them.
Would you like to see one of those Copper Thieves try to steal Live Wires and get fried to a Chrisp
Every now and then they do, and become krispy critters.
It is very 3rd world. Ive lived in countries that the thieves (and pretty much everyone was a thief) would steal the aluminum guard rails along the roads, even in sharp curves that where at cliff sides.
The 3rd world mind is something special, toss poison into rivers to catch the fish- then cry a week later when they were hungry and the river had no fish to catch. They will do the same here, and someone will kill them for it.
When in I lived in Indonesia, somebody stole the combination lock off a friend’s front gate when he went back in his house for a moment to fetch something. In Third World countries, most everybody is a thief.
Mexico is really bad.
Whoever down voted me sucks dog dicks. Leperous weenies.
I had contractors put in a deck and hot tub several years back and they were thankful that it wasn’t like one of their new home builds, where additional wireless security measures cut into their profits. “It’s a necessity now with all the copper thieves.” I hadn’t heard anything about it at the time. “We had to rewire one home three times before we wised up”, he said, going into detail. “It’s those damned illegals. How do I know? Because we’ve caught them in the act and had them hauled away. They must teach a class down there because they can strip a house faster than you can tie your shoes.”
I served in the ROK in the sixties. Wire theft was so rampant cable buried during the day would be dug up and gone by dawn of the following day.
When railroad lines were first put in, sections of track were often stolen. The iron was worth so much relative to what peasants earned that it was like money laying around. We have to recognize that since 1978 our standard of living has been in decline. Wages are not keeping up with housing, taxation, education, fuel, and many other costs. Deficit spending causes inflation which raises costs. Imports and imported cheaper foreign labor reduce average Americans’ wages. Gradually leather is replaced with plastic, aluminum may be substituted for copper, bug meal may start replacing beef. It is to be expected that stealing copper becomes common if it becomes an alternative to low wages.
More like 1972 when men’s wages flat-lined and the standard of living tanked. Dick Nixon. What a dick.
Had you noticed that every member of “the plumbers” was, or had been associated with, the American intelligence community?
Now that you mention it…….
The scrap company owners are the other half of the problem.
When some slob comes in with a 6 foot piece 8 inch thick copper cable – MAYBE DON’T TAKE IT IN RETURN FOR GIVING THEM MONEY?
The scrap BUYERS are scum bags as well.
I guess you could say that it’s better than having those young kids in China digging for it, or just change the design and use something else instead of Copper. Use Drones with motion detectors for lighting, just a thought.
Crapocrats and sof-on-crime leftist wokist social policies. Build a new state prison and start putting people in it=no more copper theft
And put copper wiring in the walls, just to fuck with the convicts.
Democrats destroy everything that they touch.
They destroy everything they look at.
This is SOP in Latin America. Every shop, pharmacy, shopping , mall, hotels etc have private armed guards. The ghettos don’t steal the copper wires, they make illegal hookups and steal the electricity. Outside of the barrios, the private home have steel bars on every window and door. and are behind concrete walls capped with broken. they will steal anything,, copper wire is primo.. All the prisons are hell holes and anyone fleeing the law goes el Norte.
They are delighted when they find that gringos leave things in their car and leave garage doors unlocked.. It gets worse….
Burglar systems, no problem, Gangs will rush a house, occupied or not and be gone in three minutes fleeing in a stolen car with stolen plates.
Why is it none of these idiots get electrocuted when cutting into copper electrical wires?
Just asking.