Scrap metal thieves hit Windsor park

The price of scrap metals has declined substantially, but apparently not enough to deter the thieves who recently made off with the electrical copper wire in a Windsor soccer park.

The brazen theft of 2,600 feet -- roughly one half-mile of copper wire -- left two soccer fields and the parking lot at Wilson Ranch Park in the dark for three weeks before Windsor officials could repair the damage.

It also knocked out the irrigation system.

The total cost to fix it and to install locks to avoid a repeat of the theft came to $11,000.

Apparently working under cover of darkness, the thieves removed the concrete covers of "pull boxes" to gain access to the underground wiring, cut it into segments and ripped it out.

"They hook it to a car and pull it out that way, or they can attach it to the bumper of a truck," said Jim O'Brien, Windsor's park and facilities maintenance supervisor.

The perpetrators likely used insulated cutters.

"Several of the wires they cut were energized. I'm assuming, since there were no dead bodies, they had some way of insulating themselves," he said.

The 10-acre soccer park is in a semi-industrial area. "There are not a lot of eyes on it. It makes it all the more attractive for something like this happening," O'Brien said.

Windsor Police Chief Steve Freitas said there are no leads in the theft, which took place Oct. 10 and was discovered the following day.

In addition to disrupting night soccer practice and games, it also affected Ultimate Frisbee play on Wednesday nights, according to Patty Morandi, community services manager.

"We were stunned to have a sports field where youth play, to have a theft like that," she said. "It's really a sad situation."

It wasn't the first time Windsor has been hit by "vandalism for profit," but it was on a larger scale than usual.

About a year ago, thieves were targeting the bronze fire hydrant caps all over town. And before that, the large bronze lettering at the entrance to a couple of housing subdivisions also got ripped off.

Police say thieves take the metal for a variety of reasons, and top among those is to get money for a drug habit.

The price of recycled metal has motivated unusual incidents of larceny around the country. More than a dozen solid bronze urns were taken in August from a Union City cemetery.

In February, a 7-foot bronze statue of a gold miner was lifted in a Los Angeles park. It was later found in two pieces at a local scrap yard, where it had been purchased for $900.

In March, a man was electrocuted in San Diego County while apparently trying to steal copper from a live power line.

Closer to home, in Santa Rosa and other parts of Sonoma County, thieves have scampered on to roofs to steal the copper in air conditioning and heating units.

In Windsor, Freitas said police took increased security measures at construction sites where aluminium, brass and copper materials get stolen.

But he said thefts appear to have decreased recently. "Now that the value (of scrap metal) is down, we're not hearing about as many," he said.

Bob Lapham, a worker at West Coast Metals in Windsor, said "the price of scrap metal has taken a big downturn."

Usually, he said thieves take items to the Bay Area. "They pay quite a bit more than we do in Windsor," he said.

But across the board, metals have been suffering a price decline, according to RecycleNet Corp. of Salt Lake City, a trading exchange for recycled materials, including metal.

Copper that fetched an all-time high of $4 a pound earlier in the year is now down around $2, according to Jamie Roszel, a company spokeswoman.

She said it's probably because of the general downturn in the economy.

"Within the last two or three months, there's been a more dramatic decrease in price than we've seen in the last 10 years," she said Tuesday.

But that may not stop the culprits.

"We really are asking our community to keep an eye out, asking people to report suspicious activity," Morandi said.

You can reach Staff Writer Clark Mason at 521-5214 or clark.mason@pressdemocrat.com.