Shoot them....

Copper thieves cut 16,000 wires, knock out 911 service for three Bay Area cities

By Amy Graff

Three Bay Area cities saw their 911 service knocked out for a week in early June when thieves cut 16,000 wires along an AT&T communication cable to steal 400 feet of copper wire, officials said.

The 911 lines in Pinole, Hercules and San Pablo went down again on June 22 during an attempt to steal more copper. This time, the Pinole Police Department said officers caught three thieves in the act; two individuals, a 31-year-old man from Hayward and a 49-year-old man from Richmond, were arrested, and a third individual fled, according to a news release from the department. 

Service is expected to be restored on June 25, Cmdr. Matt Avery, a spokesperson for the police department, told SFGATE. In the meantime, calls are being routed to the Contra Costa County Sheriff’s Office and then transferred to the Pinole Police Department’s communications center.

“There is a delay for transferring the calls to us, but it’s relatively short — 10 to 30 seconds,” Avery said over the phone.

Avery said the thieves cut into wires formed into cables that are thick as arms.

“They strip away the hard coating, and under there, there are pairs of wires,” he said. “It’s not your typical phone line running under your house. These cables can run below and above ground, along structures. They’re inside conduits. Unfortunately, the thieves know what to look for.”

Copper wire theft has long been an issue, with thieves pilfering the precious metal from everything from lamp posts to rail lines and selling it to recycling plants for profit. In 2018, the FBI sounded the alarm bells, reporting that people stealing copper wire threatened the country’s “critical infrastructure” by seeking out electrical substations, cellular towers, telephone land lines, railroads and more for the valuable material.

With the value of copper about 63% higher than it was 5 years ago, theft seems to be surging in California. In Los Angeles, some 6,713 cases of copper wire theft were reported in 2023, compared to 500 and 600 cases on average five years before that, LA City Councilman Kevin de León said during a January news conference. The issue was amplified in LA earlier this month when the typically well-lit 6th Street Bridge went dark after thieves pulled out miles of copper wire. 

Last year, Central Valley Rep. Josh Harder wrote a letter to the FBI calling for more resources to address copper wire theft. “The phone lines, plumbing, and power in our neighborhoods is being threatened by copper thieves,” Harder wrote. “When they’re cutting and stealing copper from emergency phone lines, we suddenly have a major public safety issue on our hands that we can’t ignore.”

And the stories of copper wire theft go on and on: Wire has been harvested from historic lampposts in Oakland, a train station in San Jose and solar farms in Fresno.

“It has become the new catalytic converter,” Avery said. “My understanding is the value still isn’t all that high, but it has gone up in recent years. I think it’s low risk. It doesn’t garner the same attention as when you’re walking around with a whole bunch of catalytic converters.”