This was in the area about an hour away from me. Makes it hard to tell the 9 kids why Dad won't be coming home.

http://www.capitalonline.com/cgi-bin/read/2007/07_03-37/TOP

Sad story. But I am not going to bash the dead man as I do not know what his intentions were. Maybe the family had no food. 9 kids?
I lost all of my hair over 4 daughters.
I hope more people would realize the danger involved in this type of activity.

I read an article about someone cutting down a utility pole (with a tree saw) in search of wire. I guess he didn't realize that the wires were not copper. Or are they copper clad?

Why do long-vacated buildings still have live electrical service? Is it a lack of POCO personnel, or they don't want to go to the expense? With the rise in scrap value for copper (among other metals!), this is going to keep happening. If the person was trespassing, does that prevent his family from bringing suit against the property owner? Can we really blame the property owner?

What was it somebody said about progression without progress?

Or is more specifically that the previous owner/tenant never notified the POCO that they were vacating the building?

I would think the POCO would have an interest in disconnecting vacant buildings, especially large ones. Any idle step-down transformers in the building will present a continuous load that the POCO isn't getting paid for.

Points made ... Now for the 'counter-point.':

If I had to guess ..... the PoCo had disconnected at the meter, and this guy had worked his way to the metering compartment.

Or, it is also possible that power was kept 'on' by the property management company, so as to provide a light for security. Remember, no one ever knows how long the building will be vacant .... and, in the meantime, there will be potential tenants who wish to see the place.

I see no fault on the part od the PoCo. Remember, this "victim" forced his way in so he could steal ... that's burglary, a felony in every state. Then, his efforts would likely have left an unsafe situation for whoever next entered the place - maybe electrocuting them. Some Father figure.

There is only so much you can do to protect folks from their own stupidity. I once saw the results when two guys decided to recycle bricks, from a vacant plant. They started on the ground floor. I was there the day after they were dug out. Darwin strikes again.

I also once spoke to a woman whose son had decided to recycle the 'excess' copper from a PoCo substation. OOPS.

Civilization left the "hunter and gatherer" model millennia ago. It was but a memory, even in Biblical times. It's time we recognized these Neanderthal throw-backs for the danger they pose .... rather than for the sympathy they can inspire.

The buildings usually are required to maintain power, to supply fire pumps, and other safety equipment.
"Maybe the family had no food. 9 kids?"

There is always a way to get help, if a family needed food, theft is not one of them.

I don't approve of stealing but I find it classless to speak ill of the dead.

No matter what the reason for this persons death his family likely loved him and will miss him.

I fully understand it was his own bad choices that caused his death.

However us condemning him for it after he was killed seems uncalled for and pointless.

In Ohio buildings usually need heat even if vacant - so electrical service is never disconnected. There are numerous reasons a vacant building would require power:
Fire protection
Safety lighting
Heat
Cooling (even to some minimal level)
Elevator operation
Alarm system
Sump pumps / water inundation prevention

Full story

Was told (Rumor) that one of these fires had a partially dissasembled 480 service. Either way, one would figure that word would get around the street that one could die doing such things. (FYI they have only recently installed metering on only the occupied residential building on this former military base.)

That is very magnamous Bob but some of us don't feel so bad about this guy. My neighbor (who owns a core drilling company) is ready to shoot the guys who keep stealing his equipment. Certainly we have to assume he is concerned about the 5 figure bill everytime he has to restock his trucks with diamond tools and such but you should be concerned about the dozens of kids who are not getting fed because daddy couldn't work today when he sends home the crews.

I wouldn't be surprised if this happened.


Appauled but not surprised.

sheesh guys, he's DEAD, he payed the ultimate price for (alleged) burglary. Also, this isn't your typical criminal scum, he was 41, a father, and he held a steady job. Not some young, unemployed punk looking for drug money.

I'd also like to point out that he wasn't stealing wire from a job, he wasn't stealing tools off of some guy's truck, it was an abandoned warehouse. Who knows, maybe he had some gambling debt, maybe he wanted drugs, maybe he wasn't able to pay off his morgage for that month, point is; we don't know, we can't even be sre he WAS stealing wire. So how about we go a little easier on the guy who's last moments were spent covered in horrible burns, and not pass judgement on some stranger, and say that they deserve to die, because of 473 words in one newspaper article.

-Will

Bob,
I couldn't agree more, as stupid as this guys judgement was, he paid the ultimate price.
We should not run him further into the ground with comments here.

I have looked, and I fail to find ANY personal attacks ... all comments have been directed toward the idiocy of the action, and the dangers those actions pose to others.

At the very least, some one had to get suited up, and expose themselves to the same hazards, just to remove the body.

Ann found an instance where an innocent person was stranded, and had to be rescued, following a similar incident. Nor can we overlook the sundry fires and equipment damage. Not to mention the cost, to the rest of us, of repairing / replacing the stuff.

When the theft occurs in the general distribution network, who knows what suffering occurs- and all to truly innocent people.

Shaking our heads in astonishment at the ridiculous extremes folks go to in order to kill themselves is the very basis of the "Darwin Awards." I hold that such ridicule does serve a useful purpose.
While many have sought martyrdom in the past, hoping to add glory to their names ... I can't recall anyone ever seeking death so he could be laughed at! The message that stealing wire is silly, will get you hurt, and all your friends will be laughing at your foolishness .... just might deter such acts.

The trouble is, every scoundrel - even Charles Manson - has a mother who thinks he's a good boy. Let's not let our sympathies be misguided, into making excuses or apologies for what was, at minimum, an antisocial act by a selfish person.

Moreover, this wire theft has got to be stopped. Our recent wildfire ... that destroyed 250+ homes ... was caused by someone who just couldn't refrain from making their campfire in an approved site. We have had several similar fires - fortunately stopped in time - started by folks trying to steal power lines.

These guys are not cute unfortunates who happened to goof. They are mad dogs, that simply must be stopped.

How does the fact that this was an empty building mitigate the theft in any way. When they steal the wire off your truck it is probably not occupied either. That doesn't mean you are not coming back nor does it mean you don't care about that wire.
I am just tired about hearing of these "victims" who commit crimes.

How about if we discuss ways to prevent this from happening again.

Think for a moment, most buildings of that type require their sprinkler systems to be maintained, some require power, and some use city pressure, but the ones that require power seem to present the hazzard, so if a sprinkler system has to be monitored for tampering, to maintain insurance on the structure, then why not require the electrical system to be monitored for any tampering?

It may have been monitored, that may be how they found this guy.
You keep saying this building was "abandoned". I bet the guy who owned the building didn't think that was true. Were the taxes being paid? Certainly he was still paying the electric bill.

How about requiring people NOT to break into places and STEAL things?

Oh....wait a minute. That IS already required.




***shakes head****

Without getting political (If that is at all possible???) desperation and a lack of education drives crime IMO. (This from a man who grew up in and around housing projects in and around Boston) Desperation because money is hard to come by, due to lack of opportunity due to lack of education.... It's kind of a cycle... What has changed in the last few years is the supply and demand of copper - something we are all well aware of...

Why is the price of copper so high? Well it seems some jerk in the Dept. of the Interior made an announcement that "1/2 the worlds copper has been mined - and we will run out in the year 2020." This was ONE guy's opinion, and had little science to back him up on it, but that type of wording hit the stock market the next day... Then there was (and I believe still is) a workers strike on copper nearly coinciding with that news. And then China is needing more to make the things that they sell to us.... The list goes on and on.

How do you get copper theft to stop? Three things that are nearly impossible to do: 1.) Drop the price of copper in much the same way we manipulate the price of oil. By dictating supply and demand. 2.)Raise general wages to the point where people have a living wage, and it is more profitable and easier to make a decent living in a decent way, as opposed to crime. 3.)Change the acceptance of people patronizing places that are embarrassing to work in that do not provide quality products anyway. Those types of places only serve to enslave their workers to low pay and benefit. But they have become the "American Day-Dream"... 'One day you too can own your own corporate sponsored franchise - give us your profit, and if you keep wages low you might make some money yourself - maybe?'



BTW Dare I say it, here's another one...
http://www.mercurynews.com/crime/ci_6299923

And an iteresting news story on it (Hit "listen")
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6073433

I've heard that the cost of metal is associated with both an increase in mining costs, and demand associated with the industrial/building boom in Asia.

I've had $2000 worth of 2/0 SOOW feeder stolen from a building, where it was left unattended for 6 hours. Now, I always make sure it's locked up or hidden thoroughly--and don't trust custodial staff. Find your own spot.

A friend of mine works for the Bureau of Environmental Services (sewer company), and they routinely have feeder cable stolen from their backup generators at pump stations, which are fenced off with razor wire. The connections are inside locked compartments, but the thieves just cut the cable. This not only costs the department money to replace the cable, but can be a serious issue when the pumps don't run during a power failure, and you've got @#$% overflowing into the street/creek/neighbor's basement.

TBH, I don't care what your circumstance is; if you die as a result of stealing something, you're well deserving of that fate. We've got too many idiots as it is.

Mark, this is not a copper problem, it is a theft problem. If the market for stolen coppper dried up tomorrow they would steal something else ... and probably get away with it.
As long as people make excuses for these people it promotes the idea that stealing is a reasonable way to feed your family ... or your drug habit ... or whatever.
BTW I hear he had 9 kids ... was he actually paying to support them?

I agree it is a theft problem - but if stealing copper (or anything else) paid less than the jobs available to a major portion of the population. Whens the last time you saw a headline reading: "PHD in physics explodes in white hot ball of plasma while stealing copper to sell as scrap." ??? I'm not going to speculate on this persons education level - but if you have 9 kids, you're either rich enough or dumb enough... One is a Rockefeller the other is Cletus (from the Simpsons) IMO. We're the one of the richest nations on earth right now - but have people out there doing things common in 3rd & 4th world countries. Something is wrong....

e57, I think you hit the core of the disagreement here.

You say "poverty causes crime."

I submit that has the situation exactly reversed. I say Crime causes poverty.
An 'ethic' that considers crime to be OK is pretty good at making sure no one will ever improve, invest, build, or seek to improve themselves.

There are solid reasons why some communities have essentially no crime, drug abuse, or any of the other 'social ills.' There are also solid reasons that other communities are 'stuck' in an endless cycle of depravity.

You're right ... such a discussion is way beyond the scope of this forum. I made my first post as a response to what seemed to be a 'cry-a-long' for the deceased. As far as I'm concerned ... such sympathy is misplaced. I'm not about to let us become a society of professional victims, where everyone tries to top the other guys' sob story.

Outstanding post John, I can't say much else without drifting into politics so I won't.

Having grown up poor, and immersed in a culture of crime, I'm going to stick to my guns on crime and poverty, and the chicken/egg dicussion on that. I sought improve, invest, build, and seek to improve myself. I moved out of my neighborhood, got a real job....

I will also add to that something that I heard recently. Wealth as the cause of crime... This persons reasoning was that crime is pretty low where everyone is poor. Nothing to steal for one. But the idea of amomosity created across the class divides made a lot of sense to me.

Back on topic though... Can you imagine going to steal copper from a transformer vault? (Yes YOU and I CAN... We are electricians!) It is not as if there has not been no publicity about this type of thing. People are warned since they were children not to mess with electricity, or to mess with fallen powerlines. They have heard about the deaths, and the third degree burns - there are constant news stories about it lately, and they do not live in caves... For us, as electricians, the next equal I could think about would be recycling explosives...

"Ya know Johnny, you should quit that job at McD's... Big money in recycling explosives. Yesirrie, you could make in ONE night what you do in a whole month of 32 hour weeks that they let you have without offering you any befefits that are required for 40 hour weeks in most States...."

"Yeah Bob, but dont explosives have a tendancy to - you know - Explode????"

"Well yeah... But looky here - I bought that boat with recycled explosives - and there aint a red blooded American who don't want a luxury item like a BOAT."

I don't know--- I'm ranting now. But somehow there are people who think that their time is more profitable recycling installed live copper than doing some other job. And I'm talking to people who have demo'ed out panels and all kinds of electrical wiring before. And even slap-dash that takes time, not to mention hauling it down to the scrap yard. To sell a couple hundred in copper probably took them 6~8 hours work. $25 an hour, and risk of death or jail or both.

I didn't notice a big drop in crime around here when anyone who showed up at a job site could work, for pretty good pay. There were still guys sitting on the curb in front of my wife's place with "will work for food" signs but you couldn't actually get them to come and do some work.
The problem is bums are bums, thieves are thieves. I spent a good part of my life is SE DC (Anacostia). I have been around my share of poor people and we didn't have much money ourselves but my family worked, we didn't steal. We finally got out of there but it was from my parents saving and working hard to get us out.

Well I removed one entire post and if you really take the time to look there are still comments directed at the person.

Steeling is a crime..nuf said.

I tell you I am getting fed up with where this site has been heading.

Lets stick with the electrical trade and leave the political rants out of here.

Gentlemen,

Let's agree for the moment that however bad or desparate the man, it was a tragedy for his family.

On that note I think it's time to let this thread cool off.