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Tuesday, July 8, 2008

Metal thieves hit Fort Worth ISD again

by PegNews wire

FORT WORTH — For the second time in three weeks, metal thieves have caused tens of thousands of dollars of damage to a Fort Worth ISD high school. Along with churches, businesses and private citizens, the school District is suffering the consequences of the metal theft plague.

Over the July 4th weekend, a three-day holiday for the District, copper and aluminum were stolen from a total of fourteen air conditioning units serving three of South Hills High Schools five classroom buildings. Summer school students have been relocated to other classrooms where the AC is still functioning. A more immediate concern is the District-wide TAKS testing scheduled at South Hills for next week. School leadership is re-assessing location options for that testing.

The damage to South Hills HS centers on the condensing units but at least one larger rooftop unit AC was also damaged. The South Hills loss is estimated to be just under $23,000. In mid-June, metal thieves caused at least $132,000 in damage to rooftop AC units at Polytechnic High School.

Immediately after the theft at Polytechnic HS the FWISD joined with Crimestoppers to offer a $5,000 reward for information leading to an arrest. That reward is still available.

“This is not just a theft of metal we are dealing with,” said Superintendent Melody Johnson. “This is a theft of children’s future. The community has a right to be outraged.”

Security video indicates that observation cameras were pointed downward by someone on the school roof at approximately 2:49 a.m. on Monday July 7th. Anyone with information about activity in the area of South Hills High School at that time can report it anonymously to Crimestoppers at 817-469-TIPS.

Source: Fort Worth Independent School District

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Anonymous

Collin Gouldin, says:

my company's building was hit sat night. They weren't successful and we were able to get the cable back together, but the whole place was without power for about 24 hours. And trying to get someone out there on a holiday weekend to fix it before Monday wasn't cheap...

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1 year, 5 months ago
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Pavel Lishin, says:

Can't wait until it's profitable to literally mine garbage dumps.

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1 year, 5 months ago
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John O'Brien, says:

My company, LeadsOnline, has a metal theft investigation system which helps solve these crimes.

http://www.LeadsOnline.com/main/metal

We work with business and law enforcement to give detectives the information they need to find the thieves and return your stolen property.

Dallas and Fort Worth are both struggling to find a way to deal with this epidemic. LeadsOnline has a state-of-the-art, proven, ready-to-deploy metal theft system. (Houston is ahead of the metroplex on this one . . . it's already solving crimes with this system!)

Wouldn’t it be nice if your councilmember knew that they could help solve the problem NOW by helping create a dynamic public/private partnership which brings together the people charged with solving the crimes with the means by which to do it?

I can be reached via the information on our website. I would welcome the chance to help you understand this rising problem . . . and its immediate solution.

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1 year, 5 months ago
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Clay213, says:

Wouldn't it be nice if our city councilors could get involved in another high priced contract that doesn't actually provide any benefits?

Anonymous

1 year, 5 months ago
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jtmbls, says:

Well, it will be interesting to see if one dead metal thief will be a deterrent to the rest.

Anonymous

1 year, 5 months ago
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Pavel Lishin, says:

I was going to make a remark that I'm sure some relative of the deceased would take offense at, but instead I offer this: your life isn't worth the copper in an air conditioner. Get a job.

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1 year, 5 months ago
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fratermus, says:

I take offense that the family of the thief did not teach him that stealing is wrong. And might get you killed.

Killing the thieves onsite will reduce the copper theft problem, whether by example or attrition.

Anonymous

1 year, 5 months ago
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John O'Brien, says:

It's good that you are concerned with Dallas being fiscally responsible and with measurable results for those who provide city services, Clay. We are, too.

We like to see the city spend our money wisely. We want to make sure that the city is as efficient and effective as it can be in allocating our money where it is needed most.

To this end, we think that paying a proven, professional service to automatically log scrap transactions, then offer them in a user-friendly investigative system designed BY law enforcement FOR law enforcement, is a better way to spend taxpayer dollars than the old way:

(1) Paying for the overtime (or even just the normal time) it takes for officers to go to all the scrap yards in Dallas and collect the literally thousands of scrap transaction records these yards produce each and every week

(2) Paying for the fuel to send those officers to each and every scrap yard

(3) Paying for the time it takes for officers to then collate those transaction records

(4) Paying for the time it takes for someone to then enter all of the transactions into a database

(5) Paying for the time it takes for officers to finally, perhaps weeks or months after the fact, get to some useful information to help them investigate the crime

We all have an interest in saving the city money. Cutting down on all of the costs listed above would certainly do that. It also lets investigators get back to doing what they want to do -- catch the criminals -- instead of hassling with of all of this important but time-consuming administrative work.

Not only that, but by catching and putting these criminals in jail, we can help make our community safer and save the victims of these crimes the money it takes to replace the A/C units or other metal items stolen from them.

Did you know that, in Texas, it costs an average of $5000 to repair a utility theft? A theft which generally nets the criminal probably only about $100 or less? That’s money the city may not have to spend if the criminal were behind bars already.

It would also have been a good thing if FWISD had not had $155k in damage they will have to repair in less than three weeks.

The system is already proven in Houston and around the country. We just think it would be a good thing for Dallas if we had the same success fighting metal theft that Houston is seeing.

We catch the crooks. We help cops. We help the community. Everyone wins but the bad guys.

That’s why we do what we do.

Sincerely,

John O’Brien