The 6th Street Bridge in Los Angeles is set to glow with colorful lights to celebrate the city's spirit. But the bridge, known as the “Ribbon of Light,” now goes dark at night. Parts of the busy 405 Freeway and dozens of street blocks across the city are similarly plunged into darkness.
A man in St. Paul, Minnesota was recently struck and killed by a car while crossing a street near his home where the street lights were out.
And more than 970,000 feet of power lines are missing in Las Vegas and surrounding areas, which equates to 184 miles. The quality of street lights has deteriorated considerably in the last two years.
Lights are going out in American cities, the result of a brazen and opportunistic type of crime. Thieves are stripping copper wires from thousands of street lights and selling them for cash to scrap metal recyclers. Replacing the wiring typically fetches just a few hundred dollars, but the blacked-out lights pose a safety hazard for drivers and pedestrians, and cost cities millions to repair.
Metal theft has been an epidemic in urban areas for decades, often rising with commodity prices. But a combination of economic ills and social malaise since the pandemic and a rising demand for metals, particularly copper, has pushed this street crime to new levels.
Some thefts involve essential elements of city infrastructure and even public art that once seemed immovable. More than 290 fire hydrants have disappeared in Los Angeles County since January.
And in Denver, two men were arrested for removing bronze artwork from the Martin Luther King Jr. memorial this winter, causing about $85,000 in damage. Police said the two men were paid $394 for the metal, which was recovered from a local scrap company.
Other thefts affect people personally. Next door to Compton, at Lincoln Memorial Park Cemetery in Carson, California, someone stole nameplates from tombstones and a memorial plaque dedicated by boxer Joe Louis, according to Aisha Woods, who volunteers to care for the cemetery. The thieves also stole a metal pipe used to water lawns.
Ms. Woods, whose mother is buried there, said Lincoln Cemetery was founded by African Americans in the early 20th century at a time when they were not welcome at many other cemeteries. Ms. Woods said the thefts have upset many who visit the graves. “It’s like opening a new wound,” she said. “It’s disrespectful to sacred ground.”
In Los Angeles City Council member Kevin de León's district, which includes downtown, there were 6,900 cases of copper wire theft last fiscal year, compared with just 600 five years earlier. He said some of the thefts involved sophisticated criminal enterprises that recruit people struggling with addiction to steal in exchange for drugs.
“Very large parts of the city are in the dark,” said Mr. de Leon, who recently set up a task force to tackle metal theft.
Mr. de Leon said he had begun taking preemptive steps, including removing public statues and putting them in storage, including a gift from the Mexican state of Veracruz, after someone tried to saw off the ankle of a statue in a park in the Lincoln Heights neighborhood.
The Los Angeles Bureau of Street Lighting was unable to provide a total number of outages caused by wire theft among the 225,000 streetlights it operates citywide. In a statement, a bureau spokesperson said wire theft began to rise just before the pandemic, “the most dramatic increase in recent years.”
The theft comes amid soaring demand for copper and other metals. Copper, in particular, is at the heart of the emerging economy — a key component of battery-powered cars, modern electrical grids and the vast new data centers that power artificial intelligence and other technology.
“The world can't get enough copper,” said Karthik Valluru, global leader for the materials and process industries sector at Boston Consulting Group. “It's the most critical metal when it comes to the energy transition.”
Mr. Valluru said a global copper shortage is estimated to be around 10 million tonnes in the next two years. But developing new copper mines could take a decade or more, making scrap copper even more valuable.
Early in the pandemic, many recycling facilities shut down, disrupting the supply of scrap metal. Around the same time, demand for metals soared as the Biden administration began spending billions of dollars building massive infrastructure projects.
It was boom time for metal thieves. catalytic converters used in cars, which contain valuable metals such as platinum and palladium, repeated targeting,
In interviews, elected officials and police officers across the country said they did not recall such thefts occurring on public property such as bridges, telecommunications cables and hydrants.
“It seemed like a weird issue when it first came out. But it's been costly and devastating,” Minnesota Governor Tim Walz said in an interview.
St. Paul's street lights have been popular with wire thieves. For safety reasons, many lamp poles are hollow, so they can easily break if hit by a car. This allows thieves to easily cut them or open a small panel at the base to remove the wire.
St. Paul Mayor Melvin Carter says when he takes a walk around Minnesota's capital at night he notices how many street lights are out.
“As soon as we fix them, people come back and snatch them up again,” Mr. Carter said.
end of April, Six people have been charged in connection with an attempt to steal thousands of pounds of copper wire in St. Paul. According to a police report, one member of this wire “cutting crew” collected $12,169 from recyclers between November 2023 and January.
Many cases of metal theft require some level of expertise. Some people who have targeted fire hydrants in communities south of Los Angeles have used a tool that allows them to turn off the water before removing the hydrant, said Kate Nutting, general manager of the southwest region for Golden State Water Company, which operates the hydrant.
Ms. Nutting said it's possible the thieves stole necessary equipment from a utility maintenance truck. The hydrants, which weigh about 100 pounds and are made primarily of iron, cost about $4,000 each to replace. In some areas, up to 10 hydrants have been stolen at a time, Ms. Nutting said.
Scrap companies in several cities have told police that they check people who bring them items, require them to show identification and keep records of their purchases. But stolen material is still finding buyers.
Last month, Governor Walz signed a new law that requires people selling copper scrap metal in Minnesota to obtain a license from the state and certify that the material was legally obtained. The state has a similar law regulating the sale of catalytic converters to recyclers.
Some Los Angeles officials He urged the city to focus on prosecuting the scrap companies that buy stolen material, not the people who steal the wires, who are living in poverty and desperate for money.
Mr. de Leon said the metal theft task force, which includes officers from the Los Angeles Police Department, is investigating not just street thieves but also scrap companies. His office expects the task force to announce several arrests later this month.
Still, problems persist. Late last month, thieves struck Lincoln Cemetery again. Someone stole extra metal nameplates on tombstones and broke down doors to the chambers where people are buried. Ms. Woods, the volunteer groundskeeper, used plastic bags and tape to cover the doors that lead to the chambers.
“They used to say there was honor among thieves,” Mr. de Leon said. “But when you're stealing markers from graves, that's a new low.”