Apparently, with all of the old copper fixtures stripped from nearly every abandnoned house in Baltimore, folks in search of scrap metal have turned to stealing lamp posts. According to the New York Times:

Thieves are sawing down aluminum light poles. Some 130 have vanished from Baltimore’s streets in the last several weeks, the authorities say, presumably sold for scrap metal. But so far the case of the pilfered poles has stumped the police, and left many local residents wondering just how someone manages to make off with what would seem to be a conspicuous street fixture.

If you have seen HBO’s “The Wire”, then you are famailiar with the fact that drug users (Think Bubs) routinely gut the inside of abandoned homes in Baltimore, looking for any metal they can trade in for enough money to buy their next fix. But this is on a whole new level. Whomever is stealing these lamposts is organized and precise.

The poles, which weigh about 250 pounds apiece, have been snatched during the day and in the middle of the night, from two-lane blacktop roads and from parkways with three lanes on either side of grass median strips, in poor areas and in some of the city’s most affluent neighborhoods. Left behind are half-foot stubs of metal, with wires that carry 120 volts neatly tied and wrapped in black electric tape.

This entry was posted on Friday, November 25th, 2005 at 6:39 pm and is filed under Baltimore, Crime. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.