Risking Life To Steal Copper

[big rockpile]

Somebody knows what they are doing or they are very stupid.

http://www.ky3.com/news/local/25452929.html

big rockpile

[Wolf mom]

That happens in the Phoenix area with great regularity. I think I heard on the news about 9 months ago that someone did die from stealing copper from a power substation.

New home builders are hiring night security guards due to this as the theves are stripping copper plumbing from half built houses.

[james dilley]

So are the theives going to be Fried???? I mean for $10,000 Quite A few folks will rat them out soon enough!

[ChristyACB]

Stealing the copper from the cell towers around here happens all the time. That is also quite dangerous but so far, not a single thief has been killed (bad luck!).

[Anita in NC]

“We're very fortunate that they didn't electrocute themselves,” said Burbridge.

I think he should have said, "Unfortunately they didn't electrocute themselves."

[Scrounger]

Last fall there was an elderly man in Iowa who died as a result of a copper theft. The thieves stole the copper pipes, and the basement had water damage. The old man brought a fan down to help dry out the floor. He didn't know they took copper gas pipes from the water heater. When he turned on the fan, the gas exploded.

[hassette]

If you go to the Darwin Awards site you'll see a plethora of people who have been electrocuted stealing copper.

[Windy in Kansas]

As I am sure you folk are too I am sick of all the theft. I think it is time we did away with the so called rights of prisoners and went back to hard labor. Perhaps we also need to look at the rights of the accused, obtaining evidence, etc. and change the laws in favor of justice rather than let someone get off on a technicality.

Couple that with allowed caught in the act vigilante justice and we might get somewhere with getting civility back---meaning we don't have to have fear every time we leave our property, afraid that some of it won't be there when we return.

[DenverGirlie]

We know a guy that did just this and electricuted himself, they wanted to amputate his arms but he refused so he has these shrivled burnt appendenages hanging from his shoulders. What a moron.
He really doesn't think to much as all he cares about is his next fix of meth.

For whatever reason the police have not prosceuted him for the copper thefts, but then again he pulled a gun on an off duty cop in a fit of road rage and they didn't prosecute him for that either. I think the cops don't want to deal with him and assume he will eventually kill himself off if they give him enought time, although he is now in his 50's so it's not like he's some spring chicken.

[crafty2002]

I don't see for the life of me how the average drunken joe, can still copper from a substation and not get fried and then a man working in a hot suit gets his boots blown off and the skin goes with them?????

It had to have been a dead line and there couldn't have been any juice going to or coming from the transformer and /or as follows.
You do not touch those things unless you are floating on air, or you are wearing a good hot suit and you don't just come by them.
I guess if you were in the trade of stealing copper it would be worth the money to buy one but it seems to me the person doing the stealing is more than likely an electrician.
If he is, he should be earning enough money to pay for the house he bought, unless the busted a drug test.
There is no telling what the situation is.
I know close to here they busted dang near a whole sheriffs department a while back, for selling drugs they took from drug dealers. They were getting overtime to catch the dealers.
Maybe the electricians that put the substation in needs some overtime plus the extra cash from the copper he is stealing??????????
I give up.
It's cloudy again so I am gone again, LOL.
Dennis

[RandB]

In this area recently they hit a cemetary, took all the metal doors off the above-ground vaults. That's getting pretty low.

[Quint]

A friend of mine was telling me about two guys who broke into a shuttered factory and were attempting to make off with the copper wiring out of the building. They were doing quite well until one of them found a hot conductor with industrial levels of voltage and amperage. Well, the accomplice makes a hasty departure and when clear of the scene calls the meat wagon to gather up his partner in crime. Ambulance and local constabulary arrive and find the guy medium well and way, way past help.

A few weeks later the dead criminals family found a bottom feeding lawyer (redundancy alert) who would sue the factory owner for the untimely, but oh so deserving, demise of their choir boy relative cut down in the prime of life by an uncaring factory owner who failed to adequately contain his vicious pack of trained attack electrons.

[EDDIE BUCK]

Originally Posted by Windy in Kansas

As I am sure you folk are too I am sick of all the theft. I think it is time we did away with the so called rights of prisoners and went back to hard labor. Perhaps we also need to look at the rights of the accused, obtaining evidence, etc. and change the laws in favor of justice rather than let someone get off on a technicality.

Couple that with allowed caught in the act vigilante justice and we might get somewhere with getting civility back---meaning we don't have to have fear every time we leave our property, afraid that some of it won't be there when we return.

Agree,There should be "tent city"prisons with no tv's or radios, all over America along with raising there own food as Louisiana State Penitentiary does (NO GROW, NO EAT) Along our nations highways we should not see flowers, only cabbages squashes beans and peas ect, planted by prisoners for prison food, plus while they are tending these highway gardens they can see people going and coming and enjoying freedom,freedom that they to could have only if they had obeyed the law. And when their highway gardens are ready to eat, they go out to harvest those tender veggies only to find that some thief had stopped their car and harvested all their veggies, those that they had worked so hard to produce,sad so sad. Eddie