Monday, December 26, 2011

Infrastructrure Theft On The Rise Nationwide


What's next?

Pennsylvania State Police said today they are looking for two men who used a bucket truck to steal a half-mile of copper wire strung on utility poles in Beaver County.

The suspects, identified as David C. MacClymont Jr., 43, of Seville, Fla., and Matthew L. Christine, 30, of Punxsutawney, used the truck to remove wire providing electric service along Crooks School Road near Route 151 in Hanover. The theft occurred between 3 and 4 p.m. on Dec. 18.

Let's see here, these two guys stole some copper wire maybe worth 500-600 dollars at the scrap yard. For that paltry sum, they have given up their jobs with the cable company and are now hunted fugitives that will have criminal records for the rest of their lives.

That's stupid.

I used to think this kind of theft was impossible, stealing wire from telephone and power lines, but not anymore. I used to think that scrap yards would not take the chance of buying these large quantities of obviously stolen materials, but it seems they have no problem doing exactly that.

However, idiots like these two stealing copper wire using a cable company truck and bucket brings up the possibility of an all-new problem... Using some company's heavy equipment to steal sections of railroad track on lightly used rail lines.

And then along comes the daily train.

And what happens to trains when some of their track is suddenly missing? (hint: See above photograph)

1 comment:

TheWayfarer said...

Not good.
Locally, some bird got fried when he tried to steal some underground wire and got a 44,000 volt reality check for his efforts.
Atleast he won't have to worry about his next meth fix ...nor anything else for that matter!