Stealing copper from the cops

[Bohunk]

It seems the police department in Omaha is building a new training academy, and someone just stole 500 feet of copper pipe, along with about 200 copper fittings from the construction site. I wonder who is building that big of a still??? The police department is probably the best place to steal from though.

The Bohunk

[BW Redneck]

Copper sells pretty good at scrap yards ($3.50 per lb, I think). That much copper has to weigh a ton, if not more. $7K is a lot of money to many people.

[Uncle Jesse]

speed freaks. they do that around here a lot too. one school got all their copper robbed 2x. I've also seen them cut down phone lines, the big thick ones, cut between telephone poles. the cops told me people put them into a 55 gallon drum with diesel and burn the rubber off, then recycle the copper

[BW Redneck]

More on the electric poles...

I've seen where somebody was so desperate that they climbed 10 feet up all of the poles on a particular road just to rip off the copper flashing that indicates that the wire is copper. I could tell because they left the copper brads that held them in. Most have switched to aluminum wire now.

Just like when people used to steal railroad rails...

Vacant homes in bad neighborhoods have no plumbing after less than a week in Cleveland, so I hear. Air conditioner plumbing is stolen in the heat of summer from schools. (I have never lived with an air conditioner. They give me headaches.)

[Husker]

In Omaha, any copper sales to scrap yards requires the person selling to leave fingerprints. However, just across the bridge in Iowa, copper sells with no checks (I talk with the scrap people whenever I drop by to scrounge).

H.

[Rotgut]

What is the company doing the construction on that building? If its MCL I bet it was some of the illegals that took it to turn in for scrap.

[Butch50]

I am in the construction biz myself. I have seen roof top AC units stirpped of copper overnight, copper pipeing ripped right out of buidlings and electrical wire stolen by the reel. It is an expensive nuisance. One project, not mine but in our company, had the roof top units stripped 3 times, as fast as they could be installed (and with 8 weeks lead time to have them replaced that gets real old real fast). The thieves will happily destroy a $10,000 AC unit to get $100 worth of copper.

[Ricky]

around here they are cutting the stubs off of the slab! i heard that a crew of illegals would put wire in in the day and steal it at night then get payed to put it back in the next. the scrapper had a sign that said if you were walking or pushing a buggy the would not buy your copper. my cuz owns a scrapyard and said some local city employees trid to sell him some brand new railroad steel he said no. to much possible paper work.

[new_moonshiner]

last guy here that climbed a utility pole with a set of wire cutters got into the 7200 and blew out parts of his testicals and one of his legs.. a trip to the ICU unit for several weeks..almost didnt make it .seemed to slow down the stealing a little but looks like its almost back to full swing again .. guess it takes a trip to th morgue before some people get the picture ..

[bronzdragon]

After the hurricane a few years back, it was very common around here to hear that people had their AC units torn apart for the copper. It was pretty bad, thieves would break into peoples houses and tear up anything that they could sell at the scrap yard.

Luckily it's cooled down a little bit, but there was several weeks there where I sat up at night with my dog and gun. And I live right in the middle of a suburb.

~r~

[stoker]

In Belgium the train company has made big losses due to copper thieves
hundreds of milions.

[showrguy]

the copper thieves hit my buddies house about a mile from me, they cut all the copper plumbing out, they took the well line, , they were nice unough to flip the breaker off so it would'nt fill the basement with water and burn up the pump....
thet took the A/C line set...
then they even cut the 3/8 copper coming from the oil tank to the furnace, they did crimp the end to stop the oil, but not a good crimp, the entire oil tank (full) ended up all over the floor..
he had the house for sale so he did'nt know it until he opened the basement door and smelled the oil...
homeowners insurance would'nt cover any of the costs ($6,000.00) because the house had been vacant for more than 2 weeks....

that made me think of the 40' of 1 1/2" i had on my lower porch, so i moved it inside, outa sight...

[junkyard dawg]

Theres a pissed off entrepraneur around here advertising to encase your electric service in a yard of concrete to prevent thieves from stealing the wire. I have several friends who've been victims of copper thieves...

I hate thieves