Rising Copper Prices have some thieves getting bolder
The construction manager at NeighborWorks Waco is all but exasperated.
Despite Calvin Hodde’s efforts in rigging up motion detectors and installing security lights, thieves were at it again on a recent weekend, swiping copper wires for the third time from two homes under construction.
Damages to each home total about $2,000, Hodde said, but the thieves likely will walk away from a metal recycling company with less than $50 in cash for the copper they’ve taken.
“Gosh, I’d give ’em $20 just to leave it alone,” said Hodde, who is also the mayor of Lacy-Lakeview.
With copper prices hitting a seven-week high this month, Hodde and others say they’ve noticed an increase in theft. And the costly problem isn’t just affecting home builders. Thieves have been targeting area schools, churches and others.
Police say copper thieves often have a history of drug charges, and profits — often as low as $15 despite the $500 to $4,000 worth of damage caused — may yield just enough for a quick fix.
“I’ve arrested a guy that did that,” Waco Police Detective James Head said. “A lot of these people, when you do catch them, they’ve got outstanding warrants for narcotics paraphernalia or they’ve been arrested before.”
However, Head said, because damages from thefts are usually less than $20,000 with each offense, sentences for those convicted usually top out at two years. Plus, he said, since these types of crime are generally nonviolent, bonds are not set extremely high.
“They can’t just keep everybody forever,” Head said. “You wouldn’t have room.”
The real problem, he said, is making charges stick.
“It’s hard to catch people because even if you catch them afterward, how do you prove where (the copper) came from?” Head said. “It’s not a crime to possess the metal.”
He said officers can arrest someone on copper theft charges or vandalism of a home or air conditioner only if the perpetrator is caught in the act or if police have a specific suspect to look for.
That’s a disappointing answer for people like Hodde.
NeighborWorks Waco is a nonprofit group that builds about 20 to 25 homes a year, he said. Having to replace copper wiring several times makes it increasingly difficult to build affordable housing, he said.
Waco Independent School District campuses also have been targeted, with some elementary schools getting hit several times this year, said Craig Finley, district director of facilities and maintenance.
Whole air compressors and copper wiring have been taken from nine or 10 schools this year, he said, with several compressors being stolen in just the last month.
At Habitat for Humanity, another nonprofit home builder, volunteer labor significantly lowers the nearly $4,000 cost of rewiring ransacked homes, Executive Director John Alexander said. But delays due to copper theft mean one family will have to wait weeks longer than expected to move into their finished home.
“I think the answer is trying to figure out a way where we can catch them at the point where they resell it,” Alexander said.