Posted on 07/22/2007 3:19:32 PM PDT by Kieri
As the price of copper and other metals rises, increasingly bold thieves in Washtenaw County are stripping the plumbing out of new houses, cutting catalytic converters off cars and going so far as stealing the ground wires from emergency radio towers.
Yet the latest target of metal-seeking crooks has people shaking their heads in disbelief.
"There's this fundamental belief that you'll be treated right after you're gone and that cemeteries won't be victimized,'' Washtenaw County Sheriff's Cmdr. Dave Egeler said after nearly 70 copper vases were swiped from grave sites at the Washtenong Memorial Park and Mausoleum in Ann Arbor Township last weekend.
The graveside thefts are the newest twist in what has become a common crime nationwide by thieves looking for quick money, police say.
Since April, there have been dozens of metal thefts throughout the county - from construction sites in Ann Arbor Township, radio towers in Ypsilanti and parked work vans in Dexter. Egeler estimates the overall cost of lost property is beyond six figures.
Copper is the most popular target. Since 2005, the cost of copper pipe and tubing has risen by nearly 71 percent, according to the Copper Development Association, an increase attributed to rising demand from Asia.
That's no justification to the families affected by the cemetery thefts, said Maureen Barr, family services manager at Washtenong Memorial Park.
The vases, nearly 90 percent copper, are quite heavy and were missing in several different sections of the 60-acre cemetery, Barr said. The thief or thieves snapped the chains connecting the metal to the gravestones and then replaced the flowers in the hole.
She was in her office on July 12 when a man who came to visit a friend's grave noticed the foot-tall vase for flowers was missing from the grave marker and several others around.
"He was appalled and most of the families who were affected were appalled that people would do something like that,'' Barr said. "They bring flowers as a memorial and to have them ripped away reignites the pain of their loss. Yes, there are dead people here, but this place is for the living.''
Barr says anyone who buys the stolen materials is an equal partner in crime. So do police, who do not have suspects in the cemetery vase thefts.
Suspects are hard to come by because of the nature of the scrap metal trade, Egeler said. Copper items usually lack serial numbers or other identifiers. Recyclers have no exact method to know if the material is stolen, and unlike pawn shops, scrap collectors do not have to ask for identification and fingerprints for police review, Egeler said.
The consensus among local police is that the recent thefts are tied to drug trade. Stealing copper items can be lucrative, with scrap copper fetching more than $3 a pound.
The state Legislature placed tougher penalties on certain entities caught buying or selling stolen copper cable, but the trade has grown beyond that to items that contain copper alloys, such as brass.
Multiple scrap and salvage companies in Washtenaw and Livingston counties were reluctant to speak to The News about the trend and some insisted volume was down compared with past years.
Craig Swenson, systems manager for the 800 MHz Consortium in Washtenaw County, said he wasn't surprised when thieves targeted the two communications towers in the emergency radio system that connects the major public safety departments. A tower at Eastern Michigan University was robbed of grounding cables and copper plates in April, he said, and the other tower in Scio Township was hit in each of the last two months. Last week, thieves cut 6 feet of grounding wire last week. There was no disruption to service.
"We were hoping we wouldn't get hit but weren't surprised because it was happening at ... cell phone towers,'' Swenson said. "Unlike them, however, we have to repair the grounding wires immediately because you want to be as best protected as you can from a lighting strike.''
What struck Swenson was that the thieves were careful not to touch live wires. Others have not been as cautious.
Six people in southeast Michigan were killed from either falls or electrocution while trying to steal live wires in 2006, according to the Michigan Public Service Commission, which in June issued a statewide alert about the increase of copper utility thefts and the potential safety risks to the thieves, employees and the public.
There is no national count of people killed in attempted copper thefts, but news accounts put the death toll at about two dozen over the past year, including an Ohio man who was electrocuted earlier this month and was found tangled in a utility line.
Art Aisner can be reached at aaisner@annarbornews.com or 734-994-6823.
“There is no national count of people killed in attempted copper thefts, but news accounts put the death toll at about two dozen over the past year, including an Ohio man who was electrocuted earlier this month and was found tangled in a utility line.”
Seems like a feature, not a bug, to me.
Bums use it for alcohol.
Someone swiped the copper down spout off the churches gutter system.
Scrap metal dealers are complicit.
Action needs to be taken immediately to prosecute them for accepting suspicious materials.
End it right now.
BUMP
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