Man Allegedly Chops Down Pole for Copper

[allesennogwat]

HONOLULU - A 47-year-old man accused chopping down a utility pole to steal its copper wiring was charged with misdemeanor criminal trespass. He also faces several felony charges.

Alden Kaupiko was scheduled to appear in court Monday. His bail was set at $1,000. He also faces charges of second-degree property damage, criminal tampering and fourth-degree theft.

Kaupiko was arrested Friday at Koko Head District Park, where a utility pole had been chopped down, disrupting telephone service in the area.

Police said he was allegedly attempting steal copper wiring from a transformer. Forty pounds of wiring was recovered.

There have been several copper thefts on Oahu in past few months, costing taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars.

In September, thieves made off with more than 2 1/2 miles of copper wire they dug up along the H-1 Freeway in West Oahu. The wire connected 16 lights along the freeway from Makakilo to Kunia, which was already dark after being hit by thieves this summer.

[raeldridge]

dude up near here in Dayton OH went into a closed and abandoned factory and rip out some of the transformers for the copper.

first chop of the axe, he found out that not all the power had not been disconnected.

lived a couple days after that, then expired because of the massive burns.

[Mandaree36]

Had the same thing here in Northern ND. They condemned a whole housing subdivision and had been letting people come in and remove things. Well two guys thought what about all that copper in the transformers - so they decided to bust open the transformers. They found them both dead the next morning. Apparently someone had forgot to kill all the power to the area.

[Kymas23]

I drive on that freeway everyday on the way to and from work. That article has an error, it should be H2, not H1 as reported.

The police think that crystal meth addicts are selling it to get money for their habit. I remember a few years ago, another man was killed trying to steal copper at an electrical substation.

[KernelKrink]

We had a similar problem here. An old glass factory that shut down several years ago has half rented out as warehouse space and the other half is still empty. People were breaking into the empty half to steal scrap metal and were cutting up steel racks and conveyers with an acetylene torch, which is bad enough. But they kept setting the place on fire too, stray sparks from the cutting operation was apparently enough to get the old wood in there going pretty good. I'm not talking once, I'm talking like every day for a week or so! Always wondered why the arson investigaters didn't start staking out the place after oh say the 4th run that week for the same thing? One of the guys eventually got caught when he tried to get treated for burns.

Of course, the cops here are not the greatest either. A couple years ago we had a little problem in a local bar. EVERY (and I do mean EVERY) Saturday night straight for about 2 months someone would let off a few shots either inside the bar or right outside. Cops would come about 15 minutes later and collect spent casings and question the people who hadn't split, but everyone "didn't know nuthin'". Luckily the worst result was a couple minor extremity wounds. The bad thing was the bar was about 7 feet away from the COP substation right next door! Now, I understand they close at 5PM, and overtime is expensive, but would it kill them to have a few cops stay late on Saturday?

[3 weelin geezer]

Thats funny how some people think they 'found' something valuable just because no one is around with a club and the thing is neither nailed down or on fire (or so they think) but discover different when they chop it with that axe.