> Speculation is that they wanted the metal to sell. <
A guy I know made a pretty good dollar replacing metal pipes in a housing project. The residents would pull out their own pipes, and sell the metal. He’d come in and replace them. Rinse and repeat.
My friend finally stopped, as he was beginning to feel unsafe on the job. This was about 25 years ago.
I’ve seen illegals here stripping metal wire from those guy wire things that support utility poles.
I am sure he would REALLY feel unsafe today.